ADAPt Design: A Methodology for Enabling Modular Design for Mission Specific SUAS

Abstract

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.

A Framework for Integrated Analysis, Design, and Rapid Prototyping of Small Unmanned Airplanes

“…The work outlined in this paper follows the Aggregate Derivative Approach to Product Design (ADAPt) methodology as described by Fisher [8]. A similar use of ADAPt Design for on-demand multirotor design and fabrication is presented in another paper by Cheng et.…”