SUAVE: An Open-Source Environment for Multi-Fidelity Conceptual Vehicle Design

SUAVE, a conceptual level aircraft design environment, incorporates multiple infor-mation sources to analyze unconventional configurations. Developing the capability of producing credible conceptual level design conclusions for futuristic aircraft with advanced technologies is a primary directive. Many software tools for aircraft conceptual design rely upon empirical correlations and other handbook approximations. SUAVE proposes a way to design aircraft featuring advanced technologies by augmenting relevant correlations with physics-based methods. SUAVE is constructed as a modular set of analysis tools written compactly and evalu-ated with minimal programming effort. Additional capabilities can be incorporated using extensible interfaces and prototyped with a top-level script. The flexibility of the environ-ment allows the creation of arbitrary mission profiles, unconventional propulsion networks, and right-fidelity at right-time discipline analyses. This article will first explain how SUAVE’s analysis capabilities are organized to en-able flexibility. Then, it will summarize the analysis strategies for the various disciplines required to evaluate a mission. Of particular interest will be the construction of unconven-tional energy networks necessary to evaluate configurations such as hybrid-electric com-mercial transports and solar-electric unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Finally, verification and validation studies will be presented to demonstrate the capabilities of SUAVE, includ-ing cases for conventional and unconventional vehicles. While some of these cases will be optimized results, discussion of SUAVE’s interface with optimization will be reserved for a future publication. I.