Analytical target cascading in aircraft design

Analytical Target Cascading (ATC) is a product development tool that computes component design specifications such that the final system design is consistent and meets design targets. ATC is useful for complex product design that must be approached by decomposition, and facilitates concurrent design activities. While ATC has been applied successfully to automotive design, this article introduces the application of ATC to aircraft design, and discusses how it can be congruent with current design practice. ATC is used to solve an aircraft design problem where several flight regimes are considered separately. ATC can be used to balance low-fidelity system analysis and component-level multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) activities. Finally, ATC may be used to coordinate overall aircraft design, with MDO employed to solve tightly coupled disciplinary problems that exist within ATC elements.