Designing Ranged Sets of Top-Level Design Specifications for a Family of Aircraft: An Application of Design Capability Indices

Design capability indices provide a metric to assess the capability of a family of designs, represented by a range of top-level design specifications, to satisfy a ranged set of design requirements. Design capability indices can be used to manage design freedom in the early stages of the design process when design requirements for a system may be uncertain. To illustrate the use of design capability indices, the design of a family of General Aviation aircraft is presented: design capability indices are used to simultaneously design a family of three aircraft around a two, a four, and a six seater configuration. The results are compared against two of our previous studies.