Development of a decision support framework for systems architecting in aerospace applications

Abstract

This paper describes the development of a new decision support framework that assists system designers in identifying optimal architectural concepts, and a more focused design exploration strategy with the aim of improving system utility, and reducing life-cycle cost(LCC). The framework developed has been applied to the design of a low-cost Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) for use in coastal monitoring and search and rescue operations. The case study was used to demonstrate the applicability of the framework in allowing system designers to generate and trade between different architectural concepts, and also numerically capture the rationale behind the decision-making process. This is achieved by using a formal modelling approach that defines the architectural decision-making process as a network, whereby the nodes of the network represent system functions and the connecting edges represent the physical/preferential constraints declared by the decision maker on the architectural solution space. In addition, the framework makes use of multi-objective optimization methodologies, in combination with centrality measures from graph theory and a modified version of the main effects analysis from the Design of Experiments (DoE) literature, to identify Pareto optimal solutions and a focused architectural exploration strategy with the aim of improving upon the solutions within the Pareto set.

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ORCID for Hakki Eres: orcid.org/0000-0003-4967-0833

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