In order to research the field sensing characteristic of the carbon fiber smart material, the Tikhonov regularization principle and the modiifed Newton-Raphson(MNR) algorithm were adopted to solve the inverse problem of the electrical resistance tomography (ERT). An ERT system of carbon fiber smart material was developed. Field sensing characteristic was researched with the experiment. The experimental results show that the speciifc resistance distribution of carbon ifber smart material is highly consistent with the distribution of structural strain. High resistance zone responds to high strain area, and the speciifc resistance distribution of carbon ifber smart material relfects the distribution of sample strain in covering area. Monitoring by carbon ifber smart material on complicated strain status in sample ifeld domain is realized through theoretical and experimental study.