Value driven conceptual design of unmanned air system for a defence application

Abstract

The work presented culminates in the development of a value driven conceptual design assessment framework for a small Unmanned Air System (UAS) to be utilized in a defence application. In the field of Multi-Disciplinary Design Optimisation, most recent systematic search has been devoted to fixed topology parametric geometries, pertaining to a single concept, with very little stress put on the optimization of variable topologies describing alternative design concepts. The search is conducted in a highly novel manner, generating a broad range of combinations of UAS configurations and geometries by systematically searching alternative concepts and design configurations through the parameterization of the aircraft geometric topologies. Moreover, the “value” of proposed solutions is assessed in an objective way both from performance and economic perspectives, while the optimal solution is identified based on the user’s needs after relaxing all of the design constraints. During the multi-criteria decision analysis, the quantification/conversion of the linguistic preferences of the user between the various attributes to numerical values has disclosed some deficiencies introduced by the unjustifiable numerical scales used in the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and a novel value model for consistent value assessment is introduced, synthesizing the AHP assessment methodologies with multi-attribute value-focused analysis.

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

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