Description: Large, lightweight, deployable solar array structures have been identified as a key enabling technology for NASA with analysis and design of these structures being the top challenge in meeting the overall goals of the NASA Space Technology Roadmap. The use of analysis to drive design from an early stage is critical to their success, yet conflicting design requirements and demanding space constraints make traditional design/build/test methods challenging and expensive. The proposed SBIR program focuses on overcoming this through the development of a user-friendly multi-disciplinary design and analysis software toolkit that can rapidly perform parametric studies and design optimization of solar array concepts. The software package will provide a graphical user interface and underlying analysis procedures to evaluate critical performance metrics (e.g. deployment, packaging efficiency, strength, stiffness, mass, etc.), while eliminating the unnecessary pre-processing and computational overhead associated with current approaches. The user will be able to interactively investigate effects of design parameter changes (e.g. array geometry, size, number of panels/sections, joint properties, control system parameters) on critical performance metrics and analysis results. Analysis capabilities will include flexible multi-body dynamics, array deployment, loading due to thrust, and modal analysis. Parametric study and design optimization capabilities will also be key features of the tool. Model creation will be simplified through the use of an extensible, hierarchical blockset solution and a library of blocks specific to deployable solar array analysis. The Phase I effort will focus on developing accurate analysis capabilities, a parametric study workflow, and the GUI for controlling them and interpreting results. Phase II will incorporate additional analysis types (e.g. thermal, uncertainty propagation, sensitivity analysis, etc.) as well as a design optimization framework.

Benefits: The most immediate opportunity for the tools that will be developed under this SBIR is to assist NASA and its contractors in performing design trade studies of large mass-efficient deployable solar array systems. The tools will allow rapid trade studies of these systems to be carried out so that designs can be optimized for critical performance requirements such as deployment reliability, stiffness, strength, control, etc. The tools can also be easily extended and/or customized to allow design and analysis of other hardware of interest to NASA, including lightweight booms, frames, and expandable/inflatable structures. Products that will leverage these hardware elements include space fuel stations, manned outposts on the moon or Mars, and robotic exploration vehicles.

The tools will have broader applications than just the design and optimization of deployable solar array structures. The development of the toolset will focus on developing a modular, open-architecture tool that is easily extensible and customizable to integrate with other systems, software tools, and architectures. The underlying architecture of the toolset allows it to be easily expanded and/or customized to enable additional analysis solutions, geometry modules, control systems, interactions, and terminology relevant to a vast array of other products. This framework results in a powerful tool for design and analysis of any product that has several disparate components that must work in an integrated way. Products may include heavy equipment, robotics, industrial manufacturing, spacecraft, aircraft, automotive, and energy applications, to name but a few.