7th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research 2009 (CSER 2009)

An Integrated Evaluation System for the Conceptual Design of Space Systems

Deepak Santhanakrishnan1, Geoffrey T. Parks2, Jerome P. Jarrett3 and P. John Clarkson4 Engineering Design Centre, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK, ds433@cam.ac.uk Engineering Design Centre, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK, gtp10@cam.ac.uk 3 Engineering Design Centre, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK, jpj1001@cam.ac.uk 4 Engineering Design Centre, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, UK, pjc10@cam.ac.uk
2 1

Abstract The most important and crucial decisions in a space mission life-cycle are made during the conceptual design phase. This initial design phase offers the best opportunity to make radical changes preventing potential failures and anomalies before proceeding to the verification and validation phases of the life-cycle. This paper proposes a two-fold approach to the conceptual design of space systems and the use of an integrated evaluation system. The development of an integrated system analysis tool that will link evaluation and optimisation capabilities and will have the potential to improve the overall design process practice in the early phases of the design of space systems is described. Keywords - System integration; System flexibility; Space systems engineering; Conceptual design process; Multi-objective optimisation. The conceptual design of space systems is challenging and the design process is chaotic, in the sense that very small 1 Introduction changes can have very large effects in unforeseen ways. In recent decades, there has been continuous pressure to Spacecraft design is a complex process consisting of many improve the design process for complex systems at the interrelated tasks, and the way in which these tasks are conceptual level, by reducing overall development time and divided and organised has a significant effect on the increasing design quality. Most contemporary complex eventual outcome and success of the design process. systems are characterised by a high degree of complexity and heterogeneity. In order to enhance the reliability of Over time, simulation-based design and CAD-based models such systems it is vital to define methodologies and develop have become indispensable to space agencies for satisfying tools aimed at providing good designs of the system itself. the major constraints for the design and development of the Systems engineering lies at the heart of the development of space systems. any complex system and usually takes centre stage in various creative endeavours [1]. To successfully meet the demands of stakeholders and the end user, systems engineering practices are employed and practised during the various phases of the design life-cycle in the aerospace industries. Aerospace products are usually complex and require in-depth scientific knowledge and technical advancements to make them succeed [2]. Space agencies and aerospace companies have always placed a high emphasis on four major constraints/criteria (cost, performance, schedule and risk) in the design and manufacture of spacecraft. The design of space systems has evolved considerably over the last few years to provide efficient and reliable baseline designs and architectures to systems engineers. Design process improvements in the initial phases of the mission life-cycle are clearly an important contributor to the success of aerospace products. The conceptual design process is inherently an iterative process [3][4]. The conceptual stage requirements are not yet well defined and a variety of researchers have looked at ways of improving the process using various methodologies. Figure 1 - Paradigm shift in complex vehicle design [5]. As depicted in Figure 1 [5], most of the costs are typically committed early in the life-cycle phases where little knowledge about the system is established, yet there is much pressure to select the best baseline design for the prescribed mission. Previous studies have also shown that Loughborough University 20th - 23rd April 2009

7th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research 2009 (CSER 2009) nearly 70% of the cost of a system if fixed by the end of the conceptual design phase [6][7]. As the design process progresses, the ability to change design decisions which have already been fixed decreases. This work seeks to develop improvements in the design process in the 0/A and B/C phases of the space mission lifecycle, as represented in Figure 2. CAD models and analysis frameworks. These tools were developed by various space agencies with different objectives in mind. Similarly, Wynn et al. [10] claim that there is no silver bullet method that can be universally applied to achieve process improvement. The design process practice adopted in the real world can be substantially improved with the aid of an integrated design methodology. Integrated evaluation systems would be of great potential benefit to the design of complex systems, such as spacecraft, which involve multiple subsystems and interfaces between them. By improving system flexibility through an integrated approach higher performance designs could be identified. Integrating the conceptual design process will facilitate better decision-making and should reduce the large number of uncertainties involved in the early design process. An integrated conceptual design tool would facilitate improvements in the systems engineering function across the design and development processes. Early et al. [11] gave an overview of systems integration, demonstrating a higher level of integration of the system engineering principles with an analysis-driven process to identify the functional interfaces and technical interactions supported by the design process in a complex environment. Systems engineers should be able to quickly explore all possible design scenarios exploiting the integrated systems ability to automatically change active design variables and evaluate the objectives required for the prescribed space mission. An integrated design approach will increase the knowledge gained and design freedom during the initial preliminary design process for a complex system [12]. The primary purpose in having an integrated design methodology is to improve the efficiency of the system development process and to provide a means of measuring the quality of a systems design such that informed decisions made when changing the design. 4 Multi-objective Optimisation Due to the high level integration of many of today's engineering systems and the increase in complexity of design methods and analysis tools for the evaluation of system performance, such problems are characterised by multidisciplinary simulations, objective functions and constraints that are expensive to evaluate, and, in addition, they often have high dimensionality that further complicates the task of finding optimal designs. Applications of optimisation at the satellite system level have been limited for two obvious reasons: the complexity of the problem and the computational demands of the evaluation tools. Due to the nature of the design variables and the conflicting objectives and constraints involved in

Figure 2 - The space mission life-cycle. The subsequent parts of this paper will discuss the current state of the art and the need for an integrated framework to bring process improvements to the initial phases of the space mission life-cycle. 2 Current Methodologies The current dominant approach to space mission design is historically linked to the design process from the aviation industry. Concurrent engineering as part of the systems engineering approach is especially important in the bid phase as all design disciplines are represented. The stakeholders have the ability to influence the design early, thus lowering the risk associated with the proposed solution as interdiscipline communication is increased. Different methodologies have been proposed to handle the complexities inherent in systems with a large number of disciplines and design variables [8]. However, this work seeks to improve system flexibility and resolve system decomposition issues in the conceptual design of space systems to support the initial phases of the mission lifecycle. 3 Integrated System Design Methodology Various attempts have been made in the past to provide an integrated design framework to achieve process improvements in the design of complex systems. Clarkson et al. [9] in their work stress the need for an integrated design framework to support the design process during the preliminary phases of the life-cycle. The later stages of a mission life-cycle are well organised and the systems engineer has a number of software tools at their disposal to do further analysis on the design with the aid of Loughborough University 20th - 23rd April 2009

7th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research 2009 (CSER 2009) the conceptual design process, a multi-objective optimisation approach has to be taken as this provides the systems engineer with a detailed and thorough understanding of the nature of the task and the trade-offs involved. The main objective in multi-objective optimisation is to seek the most favourable Pareto-optimal solutions in a given design space and to select the best baseline design for the guidance of the systems engineer [see Figure 3]. Darwin's theory of evolution and the concept of survival of the fittest [17]. Implementation of a MOGA [18] should provide an effective means of handling the large number of variables involved in the conceptual design process and will provide a good basis for comparing the near-optimal designs of different space system designs and missions. We are encouraged in this choice by the fact that several researchers have performed interesting studies in the conceptual design of space systems using GAs [19][20] [21][22]. 5 Integrated Evaluation System The integrated evaluation system proposed in this work is the first step in the development of an integrated system analysis tool (ISAT) that aims to provide a detailed understanding of the conceptual design of space systems by providing an integrated design framework for satellites. ISAT aims to establish an interdisciplinary methodology and facilitate a two-fold approach to the conceptual design of space systems. The tools, the people and the environment play major roles in the development of an integrated design framework [23]. Such a framework has the capability to enable significant process improvements to be made in the conceptual design phase of complex systems. The design of ISAT involves three phases to identify the best baseline/final designs, as depicted in Figure 4. Exploration for and selection of the final refined design are done through these phases and each acts as a checkpoint for further refinement of the systems. The integrated evaluation system presented here represents phase 2 of the development of ISAT.

Figure 3 - Pareto optimality. Multi-disciplinary optimisation (MDO) is an active field of research and several methods have been proposed to handle the complexities inherent in systems with a large number of disciplines and design variables [8]. Conceptual spacecraft design problems require a large number of design variables to be analysed to explore the available performance trade-offs and to choose the best design and identify further process improvements for the prescribed mission. Hence, a computationally efficient multi-disciplinary design optimisation approach is needed to fully explore the design space. MDO is one approach to attain the better, faster and cheaper goal of spacecraft design. The use of more sophisticated search algorithms (design optimisation) can provide a faster means of conducting a more thorough exploration of the design space, with significant advantages for both achievable performance and design times. Out of De Jong's pioneering study [15] came a strong sense that even a simple Genetic Algorithm (GA) had significant potential for solving difficult complex systems problems. A detailed literature review of multi-objective optimisation by Jones et al. [16] reported that 70% of the articles used a GA as the primary algorithm to solve various multidisciplinary complex systems problems. In this work, we plan to use multi-objective genetic algorithms (MOGAs) for finding the best design alternatives in our integrated systems design tool. MOGAs are types of evolutionary algorithms based on

Figure 4 - Phases for systems integration. The integrated evaluation system architecture is broken down into a number of subsystems and all the various disciplines/modules of the subsystems are linked to the Loughborough University 20th - 23rd April 2009

7th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research 2009 (CSER 2009) systems, as shown in Figure 5, to establish a well-defined process and system flexibility for the design process. ISAT seeks to resolve the synchronisation issues involved in the early phases of the mission life-cycle. The majority of the calculations and representations have been implemented using MATLAB and are coded in various M-files for every subsystem.

Figure 5 - Systems level breakdown. 6 Integrated System Analysis Tool: Two-Fold Approach The integrated system analysis tool based on the two-fold approach seeks to improve the conceptual design process for space systems by addressing the following objectives: Facilitating trade-off studies between competing performance measures early in the design process; Shortening the length of the design cycle by reducing iteration delays; Generating a wide range of feasible alternative conceptual spacecraft designs for consideration by the systems engineers. Figure 6 - Two-fold approach.

Comprehensive codes for ISAT have been written in both MATLAB and EXCEL. The EXCEL worksheets act as a database for the transfer of the required variables to the subsystems. The database contains the generic data schema of all the variables that will represent the functional requirements and predictions of each spacecraft discipline for the particular mission. An object-oriented approach was adopted because of their ease of maintenance, component reusability, efficiency for numerical computations and greater scalability when compared to the traditional EXCEL-based frameworks currently used in space agencies and industry. The challenge in developing a complex system, such as a spacecraft, lies in the fact that different subsystems are strongly interlinked and affect the performance measures of other subsystems. Figure 6 illustrates the proposed two-fold approach involving an integrated evaluation system and an optimiser, which is currently being implemented in ISAT. The graphical front-end to ISAT, shown in Figure 7, has been developed in MATLAB to show graphical interface objects linked to compiled MATLAB M-files of the various subsystem disciplines and the cost model. Loughborough University 20th - 23rd April 2009

Figure 7 - ISAT main GUI. Each subsystem engineer has their own graphical user interface to enable the required analysis for that subsystem to be done in a much easier fashion than in the traditional approach. The main function of ISAT would enable the systems engineer to select the baseline design, analyse the characteristics of the space system design and also perform the required multi-objective optimisation to analyse the parameters of interest to the mission (e.g.: mass, cost, pointing accuracy, technological readiness level, etc.). ISAT is also provided with slider bars to select and adjust the control variables of interest to the systems engineer to facilitate further analysis. This two-fold approach will allow

7th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research 2009 (CSER 2009) the systems engineer to select the models and levels of detail that they wish to use in their work quickly and easily. The further development of this tool is discussed at the end of this paper. ISAT also aims to make design iteration faster, to decouple complex problems into easier subproblems and to change the nature of iterations by changing the way the process works for traditional designs. This evaluation system will help to pinpoint systems-level problems and better address the needs of systems and subsystems engineers for the mission under consideration. The tradeoffs are analysed and compared to determine the best option for the given mission. In this way the overall design process during the conceptual design phase is simplified and the users can examine different trade-offs, identify and adjust goal settings that are too stringent and vary the control variables to be considered, if necessary, before executing an optimisation run. In summary, the main features of ISAT will be the ability:

The following subsections present brief descriptions of the spacecraft subsystems disciplines involved in these case studies and their capabilities to represent a conceptual space system design. 8.1 Attitude Determination and Control The Attitude Determination and Control subsystem (ADACS) is responsible for determining the spatial position and orientation of the spacecraft. This subsystem is also useful to counter the environmental torques in the space environment. 8.2 Command and Data Handling The Command and Data Handling (CDH) subsystem involves the collection, arrangement and storage of large amounts of data. The main functions of the CDH are to receive, validate and distribute commands to other satellite systems. The CDH also serves the purpose of satellite timekeeping and computer health monitoring for the entire mission. 8.3 Payload In spacecraft terminology, payloads are the instruments that drive every space mission. Every space mission has a unique payload to accomplish its mission objectives. Each and every subsystem on board the spacecraft ensures that the payload is maintained and functions properly throughout the mission. 8.4 Power The primary responsibility of the power subsystem is to supply uninterrupted electrical power safely to the satellite loads. The power subsystem helps to store excess unused energy in secondary batteries, retrieves the required power from a source, and protects the satellite loads against electrical failures and faults. 8.5 Thermal Control Subsystem The Thermal Control subsystem (TCS) is an integral part of every satellite. The main role of the TCS is to maintain the satellite within a specied temperature range so that the onboard components can operate properly and survive throughout the mission. The key features of this subsystem are those to reject the excess heat from the satellite. The TCS provides the required insulation to the main body of the spacecraft to protect from different environments. It is also critical to ensuring the performance and survival of the spacecraft during the different phases of the mission. 8.6 Telecommunication The telecommunication subsystem is used for receiving and transmitting commands and data from a satellite. It is a twoway radio system somewhat similar to a walkie-talkie and a typical telecommunication subsystem is equipped with large-dish antennae, lters, diplexers and fast computers.

to run multi-objective optimisations for the conflicting objectives involved in conceptual design and handle large numbers of variables; to handle both hard and soft constraints efficiently.

7 Case Studies Two space mission architectures with different mission scenarios are considered to show the capabilities and need for an integrated systems analysis tool. The objectives that primarily drove the designs for these missions were the system mass overall cost, pointing accuracy, coverage time and technological readiness level (TRL). Over 200 equations and 600 parameters were involved in each case study. The equations involved in the development of the integrated evaluation system were obtained from a variety of sources [24][25][26][27][28]. Figure 8 depicts the unified modelling language (UML) based class diagram to represent the systems complexity, in which all the subsystems of the spacecraft are integrated into the systems. The parameters of interest are categorised as objective functions, control variables, hard and soft constraints for the respective missions to run the optimisation. 8 Model Description The integrated evaluation system that is currently being built has undergone various iterations to meet the mission objectives of space systems through the use of the two case studies presented in this paper. It provides a straightforward interdisciplinary approach to assess each subsystems characteristics and capture component-level features required for various trade-off analyses and a systems user interface to provide a better understanding of the conceptual design of space systems to the systems engineer.

Loughborough University 20th - 23rd April 2009

7th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research 2009 (CSER 2009)

Figure 8 - UML class diagram. 8.7 Mission Design The mission design subsystem helps in the analysis of trajectories and determination of the orbital characteristics for all mission phases. It also facilitates the process of selecting and analysing launch vehicles to identify the best launch site and overall cost for the particular mission. 8.8 Cost Cost estimation is an important discipline that has a direct bearing on the development of space programs. The total deployment cost of the satellite includes the satellite cost, the cost of the launch vehicle, as well as supplementary costs such as contractors fees, ground station operations, integration, assembly and testing. The costs of the two case studies were calculated using established cost estimation relationships [6].

Loughborough University 20th - 23rd April 2009

7th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research 2009 (CSER 2009) 8.9 Structures and Mechanisms The structures and mechanisms serve as the backbone of the system and protect all the components of the spacecraft. The structures subsystem must withstand all environments encountered from the manufacturing phase through to the end of the mission. 8.10 Propulsion The propulsion subsystem provides the required thrust, course attitude control and required fault tolerance of the spacecraft. 9 Model Validation Table 1 highlights the subsystems and components considered in the two case studies, which are taken from [29]. Various trade-offs and assumptions were taken into account in the design and development of each subsystem to meet the prescribed requirements set by the stakeholders as presented in Table 2. The system performance predictions of our model are consistent with those quoted in [29]. Table 1 - Subsystem Features
Subsystem features/ Components ADACS Thermal Case Study 1 Case Study 2

10 Conclusions This paper describes the development of an integrated evaluation system for the conceptual design of space systems. The integrated evaluation system and two-fold approach proposed in this paper will lend itself well to the development of the integrated design tool (ISAT) that aims to bring significant improvements to the overall design process by facilitating better decision-making by the systems engineers during the initial phases of the design life-cycle for space systems. 11 Future Work The following items remain for future work: Integration of the evaluation system with the MOGA; Further development of ISAT demonstrating various capabilities for the prescribed case studies; Demonstrating that ISAT does indeed offer better optimisation performance for the conceptual design of space systems; Integration with a CAD package and a binpacking-type optimisation approach to determine the optimal physical configuration of the subsystems; The formalisation of a methodology that brings overall system flexibility for the conceptual design of space systems.

Thrusters, sensors Thrusters, sensors MLI, heaters, louvers Parabolic reflector, conical horn antenna and filter MLI, radiators, louvers Low gain antenna, high gain antenna and filter

Telecommunication

Power

Primary battery, Ni-H2, Zn-oxide, secondary battery, solar arrays solar arrays Blow down liquid propellant system AIS receiver, multi-spectral camera Processor, solid state recorder Box 208.0 kg 186M (FY08$K) Mono cold, Bi propellant Synthetic aperture radar Processor, solid state recorder Box 1330 kg 565M (FY08$K)

Propulsion

Acknowledgments The first author would like to gratefully acknowledge support from the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust (CCT) and the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) under grant number EP/E001777/1. References [1] INCOSE Systems Engineering Handbook, (2006), Chapter International Council on Systems Engineering, Technical report, San Francisco Bay Area. [2] Tam, W. (2004), Improvement opportunities for aerospace design process, Space 2004 Conference and Exhibit, San Diego, California. [3] Ulrich, K. and Eppinger, D. (1995), Product Design and Development, (2nd edition), McGraw-Hill Companies, USA.

Payload

CDH Structure shape Overall satellite mass Cost of the mission

Table 2 - Customer Requirements

Requirements Pointing accuracy Overall TRL Orbit inclination Launch vehicle Mass Case Study 1 0.5 6-9 Equatorial Existing launch vehicles < 250 kg Case Study 2 0.5 7-9 Equatorial Existing launch vehicles -

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7th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research 2009 (CSER 2009) [6] Larson, W.J., and Wertz, J.R. (1999), Space Mission Analysis and Design, Microcosm Press and Kluwer, USA. [7] Murman, E.M., Walton, M., and Rebentisch, E. (2000), Challenges in the better, faster, cheaper era of aeronautical design, engineering and manufacturing, The Aeronautical Journal, pp.481-489. [8] Sobieszczanski-Sobieski, J. and Haftka, R.T. (1997), Multidisciplinary aerospace design optimization: Survey of recent developments, Structural Optimization 14(1), 123. [9] Clarkson, P.J. and Hamilton, J.R. (2000), 'Signposting', a parameter-driver task-based model of the design process, Research in Engineering Design 12(1), 18-38. [10] Wynn, D.C. and Clarkson, P.J. (2005), Design Process Improvement A Review of Current Practice, Springer, USA. [11] Early, J., Price, M., Mawhinney, P., Curran, R., and Raghunathan, S. (2004), Framework tools for modelling and simulation in an integrated design environment, AIAA 4th Aviation Technology, Integration and Operations (ATIO) Forum, Chicago, Illinois. [12] Bell, T.A., and Jarrett, J.P. (2005), An integrated approach to the conceptual design of aeroengines, 6th International Conference on Computer-Aided Industrial Design and Conceptual Design, Delft, The Netherlands. [13] Jaeggi, D.M., Parks, G.T., Kipourous, T., and Clarkson, P.J. (2008), The development of a multiobjective tabu search algorithm for continuous optimisation problems, European Journal of Operational Research 185(3), 1192-1212. [14] Zitzler, E., and Thiele, L. (1999), Multiobjective evolutionary algorithms: A comparative case study and the strength Pareto approach, IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation 3(4), 257-271. [15] De Jong, K.A. (1975), Analysis of the behaviour of a class of genetic adaptive systems, Technical report, University of Michigan. [16] Jones, D.F., Mirrazavi, S.K., and Tamiz, M. (2002), Multi-objective meta-heuristics: An overview of the current state-of-the-art, European Journal of Operational Research 137(1), 1-9. [17] Goldberg, D. (1989), Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization, and Machine Learning, Addison-Wesley, USA. [18] Fonseca, C.M. and Fleming, P.J. (1998), Multiobjective optimization and multiple constraint handling with evolutionary algorithms I: A unified formulation, IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics - Part A: Systems and Humans 28(1), 26-37. Loughborough University 20th - 23rd April 2009 [19] Hasan, R.A., and Crossley, W. (2008), Spacecraft reliability based design optimization under uncertainty including discrete variables, Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets 45(2), 394-405. [20] Mosher, T. (1999), Conceptual spacecraft design using a genetic algorithms trade selection process, Journal of Aircraft 36(1), 200-208. [21] Jilla, C.D., and Miller, D.W. (2004), Multi-objective, multidisciplinary design optimization methodology for distributed satellite systems, Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets 41(1), 39-50. [22] Ferringer, M. and Spencer, D. (2006), Satellite constellation design tradeoffs using multiple-objective evolutionary computation, Journal of Spacecraft and Rockets 43(6), 1404-1411. [23] Bell, T.A. (2008), Flexibility or performance? Modularity and aero engine design, PhD thesis, University of Cambridge. [24] Chobotov, V. (1991), Spacecraft Attitude Dynamics and Control, Krieger Publishing Company, USA. [25] Sidi, M. (1997), Spacecraft Dynamics and Control, Cambridge University Press, United Kingdom. [26] Fortescue, P., and Stark, J. (1995), Spacecraft Systems Engineering, John Wiley and Sons Inc, USA. [27] Wertz, J.R., and Larson, W.J. (1996), Reducing Space Mission Cost, Microcosm Press and Kluwer, USA. [28] Griffin, M., and French, J. (2004), Space Vehicle Design, AIAA Education Series, USA. [29] Khatri, A.M., Loh, K., Magnin, M., Santhanakrishnan, D., Leong, H., Teng, L., Sollin Selvan, A., Gan, C., Kong, K.S., Ng, B.F., Wah, S., and Thunnissen, D. (2006), Ship tracking and environmental protection satellite, Technical report, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.