Reliability and Productivity Modeling for the Optimization of Separated Spacecraft Interferometers

<p>As technological systems grow in capability they also grow in complexity. Due to this complexity it is no longer possible for a designer to use engineering judgement to identify the components that have the largest impact on system life cycle metrics such as reliability productivity cost and cost effectiveness. One way of identifying these key components is to build quantitative models and analysis tools that can be used to aid the designer in making high level architecture decisions. Once these key components have been identified two main approaches to improving a system using these components exist: add redundancy or improve the reliability of the component. In reality the most effective approach to almost any system will be some combination of these two approaches in varying orders of magnitude for each component. Therefore this research tries to answer the question of how to divide funds between adding redundancy and improving the reliability of components to most cost effectively improve the life cycle metrics of a system. While this question is relevant to any complex system this research focuses on one type of system in particular: Separate Spacecraft Interferometers (SSI). Quantitative models are developed to analyze the key life cycle metrics of different SSI system architectures. Next tools are developed to compare a given set of architectures in terms of total performance by coupling different life cycle metrics together into one performance metric. Optimization tools such as simulated annealing and genetic algorithms are then used to search the entire design space to find the optimal architecture design. Sensitivity analysis tools have been developed to determine how sensitive the results of these analyses are to uncertain user defined parameters. Finally several possibilities for the future work that could be done in this area of research are presented.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>