Environmental Impact Evaluation Using an Agent-Based Simulation Framework

Abstract

Environmental issues play an increasingly important role in aviation, affecting the desirability of novel technologies directly. The desirability of a certain technology with respect to environmental issues is determined by the system of systems level impact instead of the often used system level impact. Changing this perspective introduces additional complexities in how the system level evaluation should be related to the desired system of systems (SoS) level evaluation. A framework is proposed, using agent based simulation, to evaluate the emergent behaviour of the intertwined stakeholders and the subsequent impact of the novel technology. The Maglev assisted aircraft launch system is considered as a test case to evaluate the complexities arising in the proposed approach. The three evaluated scenarios showed a large behavioural effect on the system of systems level environmental impact. Even though data in the scenarios were assumed and behaviour simplified, the knowledge obtained by the agent based simulation improved the understanding of the mechanisms affecting the environmental impact. Finally, the modular approach allows for an extension of the framework to evaluate more realistic scenarios.

Environmental Impact Evaluation of Aircraft at System-of-Systems Level

“…Despite the decreased system level technology impact the system-of-systems level impact might be increased due to the increased use of the technology. 25,26 These effects need to be considered when evaluating technology impact at the system-of-systems level, based on the system level impact. Furthermore, this complexity results in the sensitivity of the aviation system to small changes, e.g.…”