Automating the Design of an Entire Bracket Family: How Thales Alenia Space and CDS Accelerated 2x the Full Workflow
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Thales Alenia Space (TAS) is a leading European actor in space and defense, delivering advanced satellite systems, payloads, and orbital infrastructures for demanding institutional and commercial missions. TAS produces a wide range of antenna reflector tripods (brackets) every year to support diverse satellite payload configurations.
Although these parts share the same functional requirements and are subjected to identical load cases, their geometries differ slightly across programs, missions, and antenna architectures. In this project, TAS engineers must redesign 80+ tripod variants, each following a full CAD–simulation–manufacturability workflow. Their main objective was to automate low-value CAD tasks while exploring new possibilities of optimization for structural performance of every variant.
Results achieved
50% lead time reduction
Using one single parametric workflow, TAS and CDS teams achieved a 50% reduction in the total lead time required to design the entire antenna reflector tripod family.
45% lighter tripods
Relative to the legacy tripod designs, TAS achieved an average mass reduction of 45% per part.
2 days per bracket
After identifying the most promising topology, the team completed full DFM validation and documentation for each variant in approximately 2 working days — down from the previous 4-day cycle.
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Thales Alenia Space implemented a single parametric workflow in Cognitive Design covering topology optimization, simulation-driven design, and manufacturability analysis for their full antenna reflector tripod family. A single workflow, reconfigured with a geometry swap for each variant, automated the full CAD-simulation-manufacturability cycle, delivering a 50% reduction in total lead time across the 80+ variant family.
Relative to legacy tripod designs, Thales Alenia Space achieved an average 45% mass reduction per part across the full antenna reflector bracket family. In space applications, this level of weight reduction has a direct impact on satellite payload capacity, launch cost allocation, and mission performance budgets.
After identifying the most promising iteration, Thales Alenia Space and CDS teams were able to design each tripod variant in 2 days, compared to the initial 2 weeks per variant using conventional workflows. This 7x per-variant acceleration, combined with a fully reusable parametric workflow, fundamentally changed the economics of the entire program.
Cognitive Design's node-based parametric workflow architecture allows engineering teams to define a single design chain, then regenerate the full optimization, simulation, and manufacturability pipeline for any new variant by modifying input geometry and boundary conditions. This makes the workflow fully reusable across part families without rebuilding the optimization logic from scratch.
Following the project, Thales Alenia Space's Technology and Innovation Lead indicated that results were highly promising and signaled a meaningful evolution in their engineering approach, with integration into their standard design toolchain as a next step. This reflects the platform's readiness for enterprise-scale deployment in regulated aerospace programs with high part-family volume and strict structural performance requirements.
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