Multidisciplinary aerospace design optimization: survey of recent developments

The increasing complexity of engineering systems has sparked rising interest in multidisciplinary optimization (MDO). This paper surveys recent publications in the field of aerospace, in which the interest in MDO has been particularly intense. The primary c hallenges in MDO are computational expense and organizational complexity. Accordingly, this survey focuses on various methods used by different researchers to address these challenges. The survey is organized by a breakdown of MDO into its conceptual components, reflected in sections on mathematical modelling, approximation concepts, optimization procedures, system sensitivity, and human interface. Because the authors' primary area of expertise is in the structures discipline, the majority of the references focus on the interaction of this discipline with others. In particular, two sections at the end of this review focus on two interactions that have recently been pursued with vigour: the simultaneous optimization of structures and aerodynamics and the simultaneous optimization of structures with active control.