A07: Aircraft Systems Engineering and Multidisciplinary Design Optimization

Discipline Airplane design

A07 addresses an essential goal of SynTrac, namely the efficient combination of all disciplines involved to enable holistic optimisation of the aircraft concepts by exploiting maximum synergy effects of the highly integrated onboard systems. To realise such a holistic Systems Engineering (SE) approach, great atention has to be paid to the parameterisation and information processing. The integration of high-fidelity methods, tools and data formats also requires new approaches, such as the integration of AI or dynamically reconfigurable workflows, to efficiently enable the desired multidisciplinary optimisation.

Motivation

Setting the framework for future system-of-system (SoS) inspired aircraft systems design combining enhanced single disciplinary analysis models and methods with novel data-driven methods to frame a flexible MDO framework for future aircraft design and technology assessment.

  • MDO framework extending SotA capabilities
  • Holistic and machine interpretable data structure and workflow management
  • Tailor made for future SoS-inspired MDO, enabling aircraft multidisciplinary analysis and optimization

Objective

Approach

The project involves information modeling for innovative integrated system design, aiming to define and manage design information in a manner that extends current standards and approaches for highly integrated designs. This includes handling machine-interpretable complex data and information, incorporating concepts of operation to enhance analysis accuracy.
Development of a Multi-Disciplinary Optimization (MDO) framework is a key focus. This framework extends current approaches, resulting in a core MDO framework tailored for highly-integrated complex systems engineering, encompassing design formulation, analysis, and optimization.
MDO workflow management and automation are essential components, facilitating consent-driven System-of-Systems (SoS)-inspired technology assessment. This includes tool integration and advanced surrogate modeling to ensure dynamically adapted analysis fidelity.
Furthermore, high-level MDO runs and framework verification are conducted. Initial aircraft and system design analysis and optimization support feedback and design assessment while verifying and defining strategies and next steps toward a holistic SoS-enabled MDO framework.

Role in SynTrac

A07 will add holistic design optimization and assessment capability to the SynTrac project. Furthermore, A07 supports and extends through a close collaboration A06 with the general aircraft design and domain-specific information handling and tool integration. Most important deliverables are:

  • Information handling strategy and (partly) implementation of it
  • Implementation of the lead configurations in the developed data format
  • Functional MDO framework for the lead configurations
  • Assessment of the investigated technologies and system architectures

All people involved in the project "A07: Aircraft Systems Engineering and Multidisciplinary Design Optimization"