Multidisciplinary Design Optimization in Small Satellite

Abstract

Many industrial tools for simulation developed during these last years still have an impact limited on the complex systems design such as satellites, aircrafts, engines or rockets. Whereas the modeling tools of each discipline or subsystems are refined gradually, the total optimization of these systems encounters difficulties of orders at the same time methodological, organizational, data-processing and numerical. Actually and in the best of the cases, the complex systems are optimized by subsystems. Savings of time of design and performances are accessible if one manages to optimize in a collaborative and robust way the unit of the subsystems. The aerospace structures generally require light designs. The goal of these later is to be optimized the force by weight or effectiveness of the design. The satellite structural design developed considerably during the last four decades. Traditionally, the effectiveness was achieved by a combination of various designs and structural materials. Our objective is to build methods and tools for the robust design and multidisciplinary optimization in the small satellites mechanics design, taking into account the aspects related to attitude and orbit control subsystem, thermal control, static, dynamic and thermo-elastic analysis and including the design of mechanical housing for RF systems. Our proposed method is demonstrated through multidisciplinary design optimization application. In this study, the multidisciplinary design optimization in small satellite mechanical design is formulated as optimization of sub problem involving the appropriate selection of a configuration. The different results obtained in this paper show that the multidisciplinary design optimization methods present a large interest in the space design with an aim of having a reliable space system with lower cost.