Evolutionary multi-objective multi-architecture design space exploration methodology

The design of revolutionary aerospace vehicles is characterized by large design spaces, a lack of established baselines, and some uncertainty in the design and regulatory requirements that such vehicles will need to meet. A new evolutionary multi-architecture multi-objective optimization algorithm is presented to support design concept selection when faced with such challenges. The proposed approach allows designers to efficiently and exhaustively generate variable-oriented architectures that can be further optimized and compared. It provides a dynamic decision-making environment able to identify trends and trade-offs, and prioritize designs. The application of the proposed methodology to suborbital vehicles highlights key promising technological enablers, which can be leveraged to design high-performance and robust concepts.