Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) is often understood as the monitoring of the structureÕs fatigue. The fatigue consumption of an aeronautic structure is performed either by load or respectively strain monitoring and the analysis of the strain spectra or by identifying the fatigue crack initiation in-service. The fatigue life estimation in such cases is only possible with respect to the macroscopic crack growth. This paper is split in two parts. On one hand, it will give an overview about the IABG activities regarding the development and aeronautic application of SHM systems. Therein, it is demonstrated that a combined usage of fibre optical sensors as well as Lamb wave analysis on the fatigue test of an aircraft structural component allows precise conclusion regarding fatigue life consumption. It further allows to benchmark both technologies. Therefore, a specific concept and development of an on-board SHM System for the in-service use on an aircraft is presented. On the other hand, the requirements in order to technically qualify a generic SHM-system are illustrated and how IABG can support the SHM developer in this process, especially when higher requirements of Technology Readiness Levels are to be validated by the developer.