A holistic engineering approach to aeronautical product development

Abstract

Product development, especially in aerospace, has become more and more interconnected with its operational environment. In a constant changing world, the operational environment will be subjected to changes during the life cycle of the product. The operational environment will be affected by not only technical and non-technical perturbations, but also economical, managerial and regulatory decisions, thus requiring a more global product development approach. One way to try tackling such complex and intertwined problem advocates studying the envisioned product or system in the context of system of systems (SoS) engineering. SoSs are all around us, probably in any field of engineering, ranging from integrated transport systems, public infrastructure systems to modern homes equipped with sensors and smart appliances; from cities filling with autonomous vehicle to defence systems.Since also aerospace systems are certainly affected, this work will present a holistic approach to aerospace product development that tries spanning from needs to technology assessment. The proposed approach will be presented and analysed and key enablers and future research directions will be highlighted from an interdisciplinary point of view. Consideration of the surrounding world will require to look beyond classical engineering disciplines.

An Ontological Approach to System of Systems Engineering in Product Development

“…The work presented in this paper therefore aims to provide a method for approaching the first two levels of the SoSprocess and generating a SoS design space as presented in [1] using ontology. Furthermore, the influence of changing SoS needs on the available capabilities and SoS design space are also subject to investigation.…”

“…Interest in system-of-systems engineering (SoSE) for aeronautical product development has seen steady growth in recent years, and aerospace systems are becoming more and more interconnected with their operational environments [1]. This, together with rapid advancements in technology, generates a desire for systems to collaborate to achieve capabilities that are not reachable by the individual systems alone [2].…”

“…A system-of-systems (SoS) perspective for product development of aerospace systems puts a focus on SoS needs and the required SoS capabilities that fulfil them. The corresponding requirements for Constituent Systems (CS) are sub-sequently generated depending on the intended SoS architecture [1]. This SoS conceptualization of aerospace product development consequently takes the process to a more abstract level, where capabilities that are not achievable by the individual systems can be generated through system collaboration.…”

“…This definition of SoS is used throughout this paper. A proposed holistic product development in a SoS context was presented in [1], where the process of development was divided into five main levels of interest. The proposed SoS design process can be seen in Fig.…”

“…1 describes how the needs and boundary conditions of the SoS can generate SoS capabilities from possible scenarios. It is stated in [1] that analyses can be performed on the process by varying the initial conditions and boundaries to see how required capabilities respond to changes in the SoS needs. This consequently generates a design space of available capabilities that fulfil the SoS needs.…”