26th Congress of International Council of the Aeronautical Sciences
including the 8th AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations (ATIO) Conference
14 - 19 September 2008, Anchorage, Alaska, USA
Paper ICAS 2008-10.6.1 (AIAA 2008-8903)

CONCURRENT AIRCRAFT DESIGN AND RESOURCE ALLOCATION UNDER UNCERTAINTY FOR ON-DEMAND AIR TRANSPORTATION

M. Mane, W. A. Crossley
Purdue Univ., USA

Keywords: aircraft design, resource allocation, on-demand

The concept of a “System of Systems” (SoS) describes a large system of multiple systems – each capable of independent operation – that have been brought together to provide capabilities beyond those of each individual constituent system. Formulating and solving an SoS design problem has become increasingly important, particularly in the aerospace and defense industries, as customers have begun to ask contractors for broad capabilities and solutions rather than for specific individual systems. Part of an SoS design problem is determining the appropriate mix of both existing and yet-to-be-designed systems that are expected to operate in an uncertain environment. In this paper, the problem of a fractional aircraft management company wishing to investigate how a new, yet-to-be-designed aircraft will impact the fleet operating cost provides an example of a Systems of Systems problem. The daily route network of an ondemand air transportation provider changes every day and, as such, uncertainty becomes part of the problem formulation. A decomposition approach analogous to those of multidisciplinary optimization is applied to the problem and Monte Carlo simulation is performed to address the uncertainty aspects of the operations.

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