Integrated Variable Fidelity Conceptual Design

CADNexus proposes to develop an Integrated Variable Fidelity Conceptual Design tool. The application will enable design and analysis of unconventional and advanced concepts in the conceptual design phase. The application will be integrated not only in the conceptual design phase but throughout the entire design process from conceptual design, to preliminary design, to detailed design. The integration across design stages is accomplished by development of a component library that will store detailed aircraft shapes and components as well as rich metadata about the components, their attributes, and any other pertinent data. The library will enable designers to generate candidate design concepts given a set of mission requirements or other characteristics. In addition to performance analysis of a conceptual design the tool will also provide and evaluation of risk by projecting the probability that the design may not satisfy its mission requirements.

Non-NASA Commercial Applications include geometry-centric conceptual design and risk analysis for products other than aircraft. We anticipate that automotive designers and other product designers find our tools highly beneficial.

NASA has an ongoing need for conceptual design tools that are capable of performing multi-disciplinary analysis on unconventional or advanced concepts. Existing tools developed both within NASA and by commercial entities are not flexible enough to make this a reality. CADNexus proposes to leverage its existing core product and geometry-centric philosophy coupled with optimal estimation techniques applied to risk management into a commercial product offering. We envision expanding the scope of the effort to provide a geometry-centric underpinning to subsequent design stages thereby unifying the underlying geometry representation across conceptual, preliminary, and detailed design. The potentially provides a major advantage in that there are no lossy translations due to file format conversions and the usual need for geometry repair when exporting and importing geometry.

This is early/mid-stage (TRL 3) — the most realistic path in is NASA SBIR/STTR, which funds small businesses and research institutions to develop technology aligned with NASA's needs (equity-free, phased funding). Check whether a current SBIR/STTR solicitation topic overlaps with this project's technology area, or contact the project directly (above) to ask.

None of these are guaranteed paths for this specific project — TechPort itself doesn't have an "apply" button. Reaching out to the contact(s) above with a specific question is usually the fastest way to find out what's actually open.