A robust optimization methodology for preliminary aircraft design

Abstract : This paper focuses on a robust optimization of an aircraft preliminary design under operational constraints. According to engineers know-how, the aircraft preliminary design problem can be modeled as an uncertain optimization problem whose objective (the cost or the fuel consumption) is almost affine, and whose constraints are convex. It is shown that this uncertain optimization problem can be approximated in a conservative manner by an uncertain linear optimization program, which enables the use of the techniques of robust linear programming from Ben-Tal, El Ghaoui, and Nemirovski (2009). This methodology is then applied to two real cases of aircraft design and numerical results are presented.