A Tradespace Framework for Evaluating Crewing Configurations for Future Vertical Lift

This paper presents a tradespace framework designed to analyze tradeoffs associated with different crewing configuration options. It was created in support of the United States Army’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) program whose goal is to develop future Army rotorcraft that incorporate advanced automation and can be flexibly crewed depending on mission context. The tradespace framework provides an analytic tool that can help Army decision makers evaluate the tradeoffs associated with different crewing configurations and compare crewing options for different mission contexts. While the framework was developed to assess crew configurations for military rotorcraft, the use of tradeoffs as an organizing framework to analyze crewing alternatives can be applied to a variety of domains.