Hyper-Heuristic Structural Optimisation of Conceptual Aircraft Designs
Jonathan Allen, Graham Coates, J. Trevelyan · 12th AIAA Aviation Technology, Integration, and Operations (ATIO) Conference and 14th AIAA/ISSMO Multidisciplinary Analysis and Optimization Conference · 2012
A framework has been developed for the optimisation of the structural layout of an aircraft design at a conceptual level through the application of a hyper-heuristic approach. The framework aims to generate near-optimal designs of aircraft of various classes subject to the simulation of multiple loading conditions. Greater solution quality than may be traditionally obtained is possible through the embedded hyper-heuristic approach, which discourages premature convergence and promotes learning of the design space neighbouring good solutions. This paper discusses the limitations of traditional approaches to aircraft design optimisation and provides a description of the hyper-heuristic approach developed and associated optimisation framework. Evaluation of the framework is provided through two case studies conducted using a computational implementation of the framework, showing an improvement in solution quality through the application of hyper-heuristics.