A model-based systems engineering approach to design automation of SUAS

Abstract

This paper presents an approach to enabling rapid design and deployment of small unmanned aerial systems (SUAS) using SysML. Recent advances in SUAS technologies have uniquely situated these systems to provide battlefield situational awareness and operational support to the U.S. Army. However, off-design mission performance is often highly degraded due to the small scale of the vehicles. Previous efforts have developed a new approach to SUAS design and deployment in order to improve the capability of these vehicles. The approach, named “Aggregate Derivative Approach to Product Design” (ADAPt Design), uses rigorous systems engineering techniques to form an executable link between input requirements and output design. The result is the capability to automatically synthesize multiple SUAS designs from differing sets of design requirements using a common set of components. Derived designs are compatible with automated manufacturing processes permitting rapid in-situ fabrication. The approach works by extending the notion of a product family so that family members exist as potential designs varying continuously over a fixed design space rather than a finite number of designs occupying discrete points in the space. Executable model-based design tools are then paired with the product family to form the link between requirements and output design. The approach is presented via an application to multirotor SUAS in a model-based systems engineering motivated format using the SysML modeling language. SysML diagrams permit the interconnection of descriptive, behavioral, and process models capturing essential systems engineering processes including verification and validation of requirements, system architecture definition, interface specification, component description, and sequencing of design logic. The implementation of ADAPt Design presented in this paper illustrates that a model-based systems engineering format is useful in documenting the approach, and also highlights the format's drawbacks and limitations.