February 28, 1998. The entire mission, including the take-off and landing, was performed autonomously by the UAV based on its mission plan. The launch and recovery element of the system’s ground segment continuously monitored the status of the flight.
1.3 DESIGN PROJECT PLANNING
In order for a design project schedule to be effective, it is necessary to have some procedures for monitoring progress; and in a broader sense for encouraging personnel to progress. An effective general form of project management control device is the Gantt chart is. It presents a project overview which is almost immediately understandable to non-systems personnel; hence it has great value as a means of informing management of project status. A Gantt chart has three main features.
1. It informs the manager and chief designer of what tasks are assigned and who has been assigned to them.
2. It indicated the estimated dates on which tasks are assumed to start and end, and it represents graphically the estimated ration of the task.
3. It indicates the actual dates on which tasks were started and completed and pictures this information.
Like many other planning/management tools, Gantt charts provide the manager/chief designer with an early warning if some jobs will not be completed on schedule and/or if others are ahead of schedule. Gantt charts are also helpful in that they present graphically immediate feedback regarding estimates of personnel skill and job complexity. A Gantt chart provides the chief designer with a scheduling method and enables him/her to rapidly track and assess the design activities on a weekly/monthly basis. An aircraft project such as Global Hawk (Figure 1.1) will not be successful without a design project planning.
1.4 DECISION MAKING
Not every design parameters is the outcome of a mathematical/technical calculations. There are UAV parameters which are determined through a selection process. In such cases, the designer should be aware of the decision making procedures. The main challenge in decision making is that there are usually multiple criteria along with a risk associated with each one. Any engineering selection must be supported by logical and scientific reasoning and analysis. The main challenge in decision making is that there are usually multiple criteria along with a risk associated with each one. There are no straightforward governing equations to be solved mathematically.
A designer must recognize the importance of making the best decision and the adverse of consequence of making the poorest decision. In majority of the design cases, the best decision is the right decision, and the poorest decision is the wrong one. The right decision implies the design success, and the wrong decision results in a fail in the design. As the level of design problem complexity and sophistication increases in a particular situation, a more sophisticated approach is needed.
1.5 DESIGN CRITERIA, OBJECTIVES, AND PRIORITIES
One of the preliminary tasks in UAV configuration design is identifying system design considerations. The definition of a need at the system level is the starting point for determining customer requirements and developing design criteria. The requirements for the system as an entity are established by describing the functions that must be performed. Design criteria constitute a set of “design-to” requirements, which can be expressed in both qualitative and quantitative terms. Design criteria are customer specified or negotiated target values for technical performance measures. These requirements represent the bounds within which the designer must “operate” when engaged in the iterative process of synthesis, analysis, and evaluation. Both operational functions (i.e., those required to accomplish a specific mission scenario, or series of missions) and maintenance and support functions (i.e., those required to ensure that the UAV is operational when required) must be described at the top level.
Various UAV designer have different priorities in their design processes. These priorities are based on different objectives, requirements, and mission. There are primarily three groups of UAV designers, namely: (1) military UAV designers, (2) civil UAV designers, and (3) homebuilt UAV designers. These three groups of designers have different interests, priorities, and design criteria. There are ten main figures of merit for every UAV configuration designer. They are: (1) production cost, (2) UAV performance, (3) flying qualities, (4) design period, (5) beauty (for civil UAV) or scariness (for military UAV), (6) maintainability, (7) producibility, (8) UAV weight, (9) disposability, and (10) stealth requirement. Table 1.2 demonstrates objectives and priorities of each UAV designer against some figures of merit.
In design evaluation, an early step that fully recognizes design criteria is to establish a baseline against which a given alternative or design configuration may be evaluated. This baseline is determined through the iterative process of requirements analysis (i.e., identification of needs, analysis of feasibility, definition of UAV operational requirements, selection of a maintenance concept, and planning for phase-out and disposal). The mission that the UAV must perform to satisfy a specific customer should be described, along with expectations for cycle time, frequency, speed, cost, effectiveness, and other relevant factors. Functional requirements must be met by incorporating design characteristics within the UAV and its configuration components.
Table 1.2: Design objectives
As an example, Table 1.3 illustrates three scenarios of priorities (in percent) for military UAV designers. Among ten figures of merit (or criteria), grade “1” is the highest priority and grade “10” is the lowest priority. The grade “0” in this table means that, this figure of merit is not a criterion for this designer. The number one priority for a military UAV designer is UAV performance, while for a homebuilt UAV designer cost is the number one priority. It is also interesting that stealth capability is an important priority for a military UAV designer, while for other three groups of designers, it is not important at all. These priorities (later called weights) reflect the relative importance of the individual figure of merit in the mind of the designer.
Design criteria may be established for each level in the system hierarchical structure. The optimization objectives must be formulated in order to determine the optimum design. A selected UAV configuration would be optimum based on only one optimization function. Applicable criteria regarding the UAV should be expressed in terms of technical performance measures and should be prioritized at the UAV (system) level. Technical performance measures are measures for characteristics that are, or derive from, attributes inherent in the design itself. It is essential that the development of design criteria be based on an appropriate set of design considerations, considerations that lead to the identification of both design-dependent and design-independent parameters, and that support the derivation of technical performance measures.
Table 1.3: Three scenarios of priorities (in percent) for a military UAV designer
1.6 FEASIBILITY ANALYSIS
In the early stages of design and by employing brainstorming, a few promising concepts are suggested which seems consistent with the scheduling and available resources. Prior to committing resources and personnel to the detail design phase, an important design activity—feasibility analysis—must be performed. There are a number of phases through which the system design and development process must invariably pass. Foremost among them is the identification of the customer-related need and, from that need, the determination of what the system is to do. This is followed by a feasibility study to discover potential technical solution, and the determination of system requirements.
