22nd Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences, Harrogate, UK, 28 August - 1st September, 2000
Paper ICAS 2000-5.10.3

SCENARIO BASED AIRCRAFT DESIGN USING KNOWLEDGE BASED SOFTWARE METHODS

G. Dirks (1), A. Schneegans (2)
(1) DaimlerChrysler Aerospace Airbus GmbH, Germany; (2) PACE Aerospace Engineering and Information Technology GmbH

Keywords: scenario based aircraft design, knowledge based software methods, kbs

In a first part, a general introduction to the ‘Technologie-Navigator’ project is given. The complexity of decisions to be made in the context of technology application is illustrated using an engine integration example. Obviously, an integrated, coherent model of the complete decision chain is needed in order to come to thoroughly balanced, robust decisions about technology application. A brief description of the general approach of the methodology and the various part-models interacting with each other under conditions set by a scenario technique leads to the identification of requirements for the software-kernel. A description of the software engineering platform ‘Pacelab’ matching these requirements forms the second part of this paper. It is shown, why a new software platform is crucial for the realisation of the project. A description of the ‘Pacelab’ program system is given along with new requirements arising from the ‘Technologie Navigator’ project. The key software technologies which shall serve as the building blocks of the new software engineering workbench are presented and their key features are discussed. Finally, an overview of the current status of work is given along with a brief description of the existing software modules, the existing technology demonstrators and their future integration as well as their contribution to the future aircraft design system.

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