System design with quality engineering

The authors discuss the use of quality function deployment during the conceptual design of a kinesthetically controlled flight vehicle. Specifically, the techniques were used to increase the inherent dynamic stability of the vehicle through proper placement of critical components. The resulting design was robust to operator size and skill level as well as on-board weapon system and external-environment-induced oscillations. In the present work, particular emphasis is placed on parameter design, the goal of which is to take an organized approach to design tradeoffs so that the overall system performance is maximized while keeping costs at a minimum. Cost is incurred whenever the desired performance is not achieved. The identification of all applicable parameters that affect the performance of the system is discussed. The parameters fall into two broad classes: design parameters and noise parameters