Investigating the Limitations of Advanced Design Methods through Real World Application

This final report details the results of the partnership between the Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory (ASDL) at theGeorgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and the Office of Naval Research (ONR) in continuing the development of advanced design methods and their application to revolutionary concepts. The methods pioneered include but are not limited to surrogate modeling in design applications, optimization, robust design simulation , strategic portfolio planning, technology impact forecasting and evaluation, as well as inverse design methods and capability-based design concepts. Prior funding has focused on developing the methods while actual applications have been incomplete and applied to simplified demonstration problems; The difficulty lies in that these prior applications are often done under strict non-disclosure agreements, therefore the findings cannot be published and shared. This highlights the need to apply ASDL methods to real world problems. The researchers have identified various problems that span the full spectrum of processes, methods and techniques developed at ASDL and are significantly different to ensure the broad applicability of the methods. These problem areas include ship design, Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD), Command and Control (C2), and space mission architectures.