Traditional engineering design processes focus on the generation of a completely defined solution for a specific set of design requirements. However, in the modern, rapidly evolving battlespace, Soldiers face the need for situationally specific aerial reconnaissance. Recent advances in automated manufacturing techniques, such as 3-D printing, have enabled the design of small unmanned aerial vehicles in which discrete components can be integrated with parametrically scaled and printed components. This approach enables mission-driven sizing, design, and synthesis of a product family using a small set of components. An integrated requirements and design process that separates the Soldier from any design engineering is presented. Mission requirements, performance models, component attributes, and manufacturing constraints are used to suggest a product architecture capable of fulfilling requirements. The process is executed to design an on-demand solution to specific aerial reconnaissance needs. Assembly takes place in a virtual environment prior to physical integration with off-the-shelf components. The resulting vehicle is then flown in a controlled environment to mimic the mission. A comparison of requirements to actual performance is presented. An assessment is made of the proposed capability and conclusions are drawn about the applicability and scalability of the approach.
Recent advances in small unmanned aircraft systems (SUAS) have greatly broadened the scope of their potential applications. However, traditional design processes applied to SUAS produce a single design for a single set of requirements. Off-design mission performance is often greatly degraded due to the vehicle’s small scale. This paper considers a different approach to SUAS design aimed at addressing this issue. In this approach, a hybrid modular and scalable product family is coupled with linked engineering analyses in order to automatically formulate a design given a set of mission requirements. This allows multiple SUAS designs to be rapidly synthesized from multiple sets of design requirements using a common set of components. Designs are then rapidly generated and manufactured “on-demand” using automated manufacturing techniques in order to address unforeseen mission needs.
The design approach, named “Aggregate Derivative Approach to Product Design” (ADAPt Design), consists of four actions: (1) requirements analysis, (2) architecture selection, (3) interface design, and (4) concept refinement and design. The outcomes of the method are a family of designs which are highly compatible with design automation, and a toolset that automatically translates changes in requirements to changes in detailed 3-D models. Results of the application of this approach are presented via the design of several SUAS. The capability of the design paradigm is assessed through a comparison of design requirements to the measured performance of the designed vehicle, and conclusions are drawn about the approach’s applicability and scalability.
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