This thesis presents a design framework where analytical tools are linked together and operated from an efficient system level interface. The application field is aircraft conceptual design. Particular attention has been paid to CAD system integration and design optimization.

Aircraft design is an inherently multidisciplinary process. The goal is to search for the design that, in the best of possible ways, fulfills the requirements. It is therefore desirable to be able to effectively investigate and analyze solutions from a variety of points of view, weighting together the results and gathering a general figure of merit. At the same time, increasing competition on a global market forces to shorten the design process and to reduce costs. Thus a system that allows a tight and efficient integration of different disciplines and improving data flow and storage plays a key role.

Integrating a CAD system to the framework is of central relevance. The geometrical model includes most of the information; specific data, required to carry out particular analysis, can be extracted from it. This is possible adopting parametric associative models that are controlled from a spreadsheet user interface. Strategies for building CAD models with a very high degree of flexibility are presented. Not only the external shape can be changed, but also the internal structure can be completely modified. Structural elements can be added or removed, and their position and shaping changed.

In this work the design of an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is used as test case for comparing three different optimization algorithms. The presented framework is also used for automatically design Micro Aerial Vehicles, starting from a short list of requirements and ending with a physical prototype produced by a rapid prototyping machine.