When there is a need to move cargo across the world in the fastest possible manner, airlift is the prime solution. Due to the potential extreme requirements of airlift, aircraft have to be capable of performing in a myriad of operational environments. To support future aircraft design loops, this work proposes a framework which couples aircraft design and operational effectiveness in an agent-based simulation, allowing a more direct evaluation of design choices. Aircraft are modelled with inputs akin to typical design tool outputs, and airlift operational objectives and events are parameterized to allow for user customization and mission tailoring. To deal with stochastic and unexpected events that occur within airlifts, such as aircraft servicing, cargo demand reformulation and airbase access restriction, the aircraft and cargo are modelled as agents and managed by a dispatcher. Aircraft bid for cargo with flights which are configured by the dispatcher, allowing cargo to choose its flight path according to the airlift objective. Through analyzing a theoretical disaster relief mission, the impact of disruptive events on airlift time, cost and cargo throughput is shown to be significant, motivating their inclusion in future analysis. An exploration of aircraft design and airlift objectives is also analyzed, which highlighted the variance in airlift performance due to changes in aircraft payload-range and operational logics. The results demonstrate the framework's ability to capture the varying complexities of the airlift system, exemplifying its utility in future airlift and aircraft design optimization and resilience testing.

This study presents the development of a multimodal System of Systems (SoS) framework, to assess the impact of top-level aircraft requirements in providing advanced air door-to-door mobility. The field of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) is rapidly evolving, and while current research assesses these vehicles from both aircraft design and operational perspectives, a system of systems perspective combining both domains is required to find the best overall vehicle design and operational concepts. In this work, aircraft design is assessed by its effectiveness in the operating environment, considering the perspective of the stakeholders of passengers, operators and European policy makers. This is done through combining aircraft design in an agent-based multimodal simulation framework, covering both surface and air transport. Doing so allows us to analyse the impact of top-level aircraft requirements on door-to-door travel time, AAM mode share and energy consumption per passenger. Using this framework, it was found that the most impactful parameter on AAM utilization is the passenger’s mean value of time. Additionally, several SoS effects could be traced to changes at the agent level, where giving passengers more travel options leads to 16% higher AAM adoption, but at shorter (-8.2 %) average trip distances due to preferences for shorter and cheaper flights. Lastly, the relevance of considering operations for aircraft design was seen, where the best theoretical design for energy efficiency performed 10% worse than the best design considering operations, as the average mission profile in operation is different to the designed profile. In conclusion, the developed framework demonstrates the need for combining operations and aircraft design, and can be used to explore the best concepts in both fields.