Application of Optimization in the Early Stages of Product Development, Using a Small UAV Case Study

Abstract

Innovative product development involves a lot of tools, methods, and approaches to create a better product faster and satisfying customers need. Two wide spread approaches are Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) and Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE). However, there are not many software tools, combining methodologies PLM MBSE; one can mention LMS System Synthesis software, now is actively developing. It is used to create system models which include functional models able to describe system behavior in multiphysics domain. Therefore, when the system model of a product is multidisciplinary its not obvious what the parameters values describe the optimal state of the system. For these reasons, it is vital to apply multidisciplinary optimization techniques with the specific tools to calculate appropriate parameters of the developed system in the early stages of product development. This research is devoted to different optimization tools application, such as pSeven and Optimus Noesis, to the numerical models constituting digital twin for a small Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV). The results of this research, specifically formulation of the optimization problems, detailed numerical models and the calculations results, are presented in this paper. The main idea is that optimization should be applied not as additional tool for separate numerical models, but one has to apply it as a powerful means along with PLM and MBSE tools in order to ensure that the product will meet all requirements and reduce time-to-market.

Environment for Planning Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Operations

“…Planning missions in terms of trajectory generation and executing them with adequate accuracy and safety levels are challenging problems in the operational phase of UAVs lifecycle [1] that require careful consideration. Studies were devoted to the life cycle of UAVs from the point of view of product development [2] and in particular structure design [3], design optimization [4], modeling and simulation [5]. To the best of the authors' knowledge, the operational phase, including mission planning, has not been considered yet in the available literature.…”