Towards Risk as a Tradeable Parameter in Complex System Design Trades

Abstract

Complex system conceptual design trade studies traditionally consider risk after a conceptual design has been created. Further, one person is often tasked with collecting risk information and managing it from each subsystem. This paper proposes a method to explicitly consider and trade risk on the same level as other important system-level variables during the creation of conceptual designs in trade studies. The proposed risk trading method advocates putting each subsystem engineer in control of risk for each subsystem. A risk vector is proposed that organizes many different risk metrics for communication between subsystems. A method of coupling risk models to dynamic subsystem models is presented. Several risk visualization techniques are discussed. An example is presented based upon a simplified spacecraft model. The risk trading method discussed offers an approach to more thoroughly consider risk during the creation of conceptual designs in trade studies.