Evaluation of Multidisciplinary Optimization Techniques Applied to a Reusable Launch Vehicle

Three multilevel multidisciplinary optimization techniques, Bi-Level Integrated System Synthesis, Collaborative Optimization, and Modified Collaborative Optimization, are applied to the design of a reusable launch vehicle, evaluated, and compared in this study. In addition to comparing the techniques against each other, they are also compared with designs reached via fixed-point iteration of disciplines with local optimization and the industry accepted multidisciplinary optimization technique, All-at-Once. The new multidisciplinary optimization techniques, particularly Bi-Level Integrated System Synthesis, showed greater ability than fixed-point iteration to design for a global objective and were more applicable to complex systems than All-at-Once. This study was the first time that the novel multidisciplinary optimization methods were compared qualitatively and quantitatively under controlled experimentation practices. It is still impossible to statistically determine whether any one of the novel multidisciplinary optimization techniques is better than another, because more studies using different test problems corroborating the conclusions made here are needed.