Abstract: In view of problems that current acoustic emission instruments have only collection function of acoustic emission data, but no function of data processing and analysis, the paper proposed a design scheme of an intelligent acoustic emission instrument. The instrument is built on digital acoustic emission instrument and known defects pattern base, and uses fuzzy recognition model to make type identification for activity defects and grad evaluation. The next research work is to build up a complete standard data base of acoustic emission resource for implementation of intelligence of acoustic emission instrument.