A Machine Learning Enabled Multi-Fidelity Platform for the Integrated Design of Aircraft Systems

The push toward reducing the aircraft development cycle time motivates the development of collaborative frameworks that enable the more integrated design of aircraft and their systems. The ModellIng and Simulation tools for Systems IntegratiON on Aircraft (MISSION) project aims to develop an integrated modelling and simulation framework. This paper focuses on some recent advancements in the MISSION project and presents a design framework that combines a filtering process to down-select feasible architectures, a modeling platform that simulates the power system of the aircraft, and a machine learning-based clustering and optimization module. This framework enables the designer to prioritize different designs and offers traceability on the optimal choices. In addition, it enables the integration of models at multiple levels of fidelity depending on the size of the design space and the accuracy required. It is demonstrated for the electrification of the Primary Flight Control System (PFCS) and the landing gear braking system using different electric actuation technologies. The performance of different architectures is analyzed with respect to key performance indicators (fuel burn, weight, power). The optimization process benefits from a data-driven localization step to identify sets of similar architectures. The framework demonstrates the capability of optimizing across multiple, different system architectures in an efficient way that is scalable for larger design spaces and larger dimensionality problems.