UAV Systems Engineering

Here’s this weeks graduate school blog post.

Jason B. Heyman
ASCI 530
Activity 2-4
20 August 2015

Overweight: Systems Engineering Issue

Question: There are three (3) different discussion threads, based on the roles a Systems Engineer must play in the design process – 1) translator/intermediary between design teams; 2) “great decider” when there were conflicts between teams’ priorities or design considerations; 3) final authority on whether a complex system was ready for release. Pick a role (let’s try to mix things up and keep contributions in the three threads equal, please) and then write about a fictional UAS design situation where that specific Systems mindset or role would be needed. Once you have completed your thread contribution, please read a contributions from two of your peers (one in each thread) and provide your comments/response to what your peers wrote. Do you agree or disagree with them and why?

The project has saved 1.5 million dollars in both manpower and parts by utilizing commercial-off-the-shelf equipment for these two subsystems. The design process used is the iterative process. Iterative design is a design methodology based on a cyclic process of prototyping, testing, analyzing, and refining a work in progress. (Zimmerman,2003.). The issue now is the weights and distribution for guidance, navigation and control as well as the payload. During the mission analysis phase of the planning it was determined the need to utilize commercial-off-the-shelf system as a cost effective measure to keep research, design and software costs down. Mission analysis focused on the needs and requirements of the business as it relates to defining the problem or opportunity that exists as well as the constraints on boundaries of the selected system when it’s fielded. (SEBOK, 2015). What was not discussed was a limit to the weights and distribution between these two systems. This can be viewed as a misstep in the evaluation phase of numerous systems. During the preliminary design review (PDR) after requirements were generated the marketing department thought it would be in the best interest of the organization to market the system prior to completing the critical design review (CDR). The systems engineer’s responsibility is to bridge the gap between departments to act as a intermediary and make the decisions as to the overall direction of the project with responsibility to answer to management. Due to the marketing efforts there is a lot of interest in the designs as stated. As a result of this interest the design teams shall re-evaluate the commercial-off-the-shelf systems to determine if there is a better solution than what is currently in process. Once the review is complete the design team along with the Systems Engineer will develop three courses of action based on the systems chosen with respect to weight, dimension and overall usability. Based on the three courses of action the Systems Engineer shall make the decision to utilize the equipment showing the best promise of meeting the requirements of the PDR and the overall requirements from the mission analysis phase. The next generation systems, as a result of sales and real world testing, can be integrated with in house designed GNC and payload systems due to the fact that over the next ten years the airframe will not change as stated in the PDR. This will enable the R&D department to utilize funds on a yearly basis that are tagged for such development.

Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge. (2015). Concept definition. Retrieved from http://sebokwiki.org/wiki/Concept_Definition
Zimmerman, E. (2003). Play as research: The iterative design process. Retrieved from http://www.ericzimmerman.com/texts/Iterative_Design.html