ITAPS: A Process and Toolset to Support Aircraft Level System Integration Studies

Abstract

Integrated Total Aircraft Power Systems (ITAPS) is a process and toolset developed within the United Technologies Corporation to support capability based technology planning. This process identifies integrated system solutions and the associated enabling component technologies that deliver improved aircraft capabilities. ITAPS TM has been developed and refined through the execution of more than 25 different system architecture studies for both military and commercial vehicle platforms. ITAPS TM enables a diverse collection of experts to leverage a documented body of technical knowledge, add their own new ideas, assemble, evaluate, and select the best architectures as well as create the required technology-development plans. A set of collaboration tools has been developed that decompose the integrated power system design problem into topical elements that can be readily addressed by individual discipline experts. These discipline experts make local design decisions and are provided with rapid feedback regarding their impact on key vehicle metrics, thus enabling the optimization of power and propulsion system architectures. The decomposition of system design problem is maintained throughout the evaluation process and leveraged to create an interactive study result. The ability to generate results in this manner allows the study team to instantly assess new alternative system configurations that may be posed during the technical review of results. This paper provides an overview of the ITAPS TM process and the associated collaboration tools.