In order to meet the growing demands of smart aircraft in both civil and military industries， smart structures that are capable of self-diagnostic， self-adaptive， self-control， self-healing in addition to load bearings are developed. Those new types of structures also propel new developments in aerospacing industries， e.g.， shape memory alloys are used to drive morphing structures to improve the flight performance of advanced air vehicles， and piezoelectric materials act as both sensors and actuators for structural health monitoring and vibration/noise control. In the context of those novel technologies， this article introduces the newest research development of the Laboratory of Smart Materials， Structures & Applications of Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics to potentially offer insights for the future development of smart materials and structures.