Effects of Uncertainty in Fuzzy Utility Values on General Arrangement Optimisation

Abstract The Intelligent Ship Arrangements (ISA) software system assists designers in developing rationally-based arrangements, which should satisfy design specific needs, general Navy requirements and standard practices. The system is intended to be used following Advanced Ship and Submarine Evaluation Tool (ASSET). The optimisation core uses fuzzy programming to provide the framework upon which the objective function and constraints are based. This methodology relies on fuzzy utility functions that quantify the satisfaction of design goals and constraints, which allows for a very powerful and generic foundation for problem description. The uncertainty of the fuzzy utility preference values and the corresponding impacts on design optimisation are studied. The uncertainty is introduced by inserting a normal distributed stochastic perturbation into the fuzzy utility values.