Development and application of a value driven design assessment framework to an unmanned air system design

Abstract

The work presented in this thesis concerns the development of a value driven engineering design assessment framework and its application to the conceptual design of an Unmanned Air System (UAS) to be utilised in a defence application. This research demonstrates the implementation of the value driven design philosophy in this framework, identifying value enhancing designs, with value not converted to monetary worth and as perceived by all stakeholders involved. A multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder decision making analysis is adopted to address their preferences as well as to study their interacting strategic choices. The ultimate objective of this framework is to convert engineering design to a decision making analysis with multiple conflicting objectives of multiple stakeholders considered.

This framework is capable of providing a product definition and estimation of all performance and cost related attributes for the conceptual phase. However, instead of pertaining to a single aircraft concept, a broad range of combinations of UAS configurations and geometries is generated by systematically searching alternative concepts and design configurations through a novel parameterization of the aircraft geometric topologies.

Value, related to the designed system’s capabilities or performance and lifecycle cost, is used to compare different alternatives in the decision making of engineering design through the appropriate value model. Following a value focused approach, a novel multi-attribute value model is introduced for objectively capturing the stakeholder’s preferences and expectations. Furthermore, a more sophisticated multi-attribute utility model, based on standard Multi-attribute Utility Theory, is employed in the evaluation.

Game Theory as an optimization tool is used to develop a novel hybrid cooperative/non-cooperative non-zero sum, complete information game among all involved stakeholders as players. This game successfully addresses the stakeholders’ preferences in a functional outcome-focused way, resolving the high indeterminacy of the alternative designs through a cooperative game. At the same time, their strategic interactions are captured in a process-focused non-cooperative game. Hence, the optimal design is identified through the simultaneous employment of the Nash bargaining solution and the Nash equilibrium.

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