Long-life survivability stand-alone systems enduring harsh environments in deep space exploration or ocean observation missions have stringent requirements on sensor reliability.One concept herein is that the sensor should have the ability of self-adaptation

which means that the sensor reacts with the environment

changing its architecture autonomously in order to maintain its original functions.Evolvable hardware（EHW）

which is inspired by Darwin’s theory of evolution

has the promising potential to build adaptive sensor systems.A brief review of reconfigurable hardware based EHW technique is given

as well as approaches on applying EHW scheme in a smart sensor system.The structure of evolvable adaptive sensor is also described.