Integrated-optimal design of airplane and flight control using genetic algorithms

Genetic algorithms (GA) are applied to a problem of conceptual airplane design. This paper discusses an integrated approach of designing the airplane geometry and flight control by means of GAs, where the two designs are conducted concurrently. The aim is to redesign the airplane´s physical configuration in order to offer better closed-loop performance will less control effort. The overall design objective comprises control performances based on the linear quadratic regulator (LQR), and a cost function in terms of sizes of airplane components. Both single-objective and multi-objective GAs are explored. The flexibility offered by the proposed integrated- design approach is demonstrated in numerical examples.