Synergistic aircraft design using CFD air loads Original Research Article

A novel approach to the art of optimal design of modem flying vehicles including the application of multiple objective functions and constraints is presented. The method employs a two stage optimization procedure so that local minima and global minima of multiple objective functions can be determined synergistically. The concept of system identification is also used to characterize a nonlinear system in terms of generalized state space coordinates. Next, the modern optimal control theory is applied to design concurrently the multidisciplinary functional elements of an advanced aircraft system. Hence, the procedure proposed here should hopefully advance the art of modern aircraft design and reduce the period of design cycle and cost by an order of magnitude.