Advanced design of aircraft structures may incorporate areas inaccessible for in-service inspection. It is important to monitor high stress intensity substructures on aircraft to assure the integrity of aircraft structures and to decrease life-cycle cost of advanced military aircraft. Acoustic emission (AE) provides an ideal means for real-time structural monitoring. Acoustic emission is the stress wave generated by rapid release of energy from localized sources within a stressed material. Acoustic sensors combined with an effective signal processor can be used to detect acoustic emission events related to structural damages and serve as a real-time nondestructive evaluation (NDE) tool.