Rule-based spacecraft design space exploration and sensitivity analysis

This second in a series of three papers [1], [2] describes the combination of an analytical model with a rule-based approach. The abstract design vocabulary is assembled by the a sequence of rules, making up a design language. After describing the subsystems in the first paper, in this paper the modeling of the FireSat payload is the starting point. The activity diagrams to integrate the payload and the subsystems lead to a generic satellite design cycle which produces a Design Graph containing all relevant information. From the integrated model in the Design Graph, different analyses of the complex system design are derived. The visualization of the constraint network containing all the variables of the design, gives a glimpse on the complexity of the example. Then the design space for the satellite is shown by plotting the mass of the system over different initial requirements. This analysis is completed by a second plot incorporating the design decisions that cannot be reflected analytically but are stored in concrete design rules. Finally a sensitivity analysis of the full equation system of the satellite is presented. The heat map used to visualize the derivative values is a mean to display all influences on the current design point in one graph.