Design Methodology Development for UAS Integrating Business Assessment and Optimization Processes

Abstract

Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) represent a young, dynamically growing market, with significant value potential and high growth rate. In order to unlock this market potential, UAS need to be designed to match the value generating business direction defined. This paper presents the overview of the method development and application for a business assessment-based conceptual level design methodology for UAS integrating optimization tools into the process. The methodology is presented through the example of an industrial-academic collaborative research project, where an existing BWB configuration UAS and the related potential business application had to be developed simultaneously. As the project does not present a clean sheet design opportunity, significant, conflicting constraints were placed towards the UAS design. As such widespread exploration of the design space was necessary, which was performed using an optimization-based methodology. Further optimization of shortlisted concept designs was performed in order to develop the designs with the potential to achieve the identified business potential.