Multidisciplinary Design Optimization of Dynamic Engineering Systems

Dynamic engineering systems are playing an increasingly important role in society, especially as active and autonomous dynamic systems become more mature and prevalent across a variety of domains. Successful design of complex dynamic systems requires multidisciplinary analysis and design techniques. While multidisciplinary design optimization has been used successfully for the development of many dynamic systems, the established multidisciplinary design optimization formulations were developed around fundamentally static system models. General multidisciplinary design optimization approaches that address the specific needs of dynamic system design are still lacking. In this article, the use of multidisciplinary design optimization for dynamic system design is reviewed, associated challenges are identified, related efforts such as optimal control are discussed, and a vision for fully integrated design approaches is presented. Finally, a set of exciting new directions that provide an opportunity for fundamental work in multidisciplinary design optimization is laid out.