Variable Fidelity Surrogate Assisted Optimization Using A Suite of Low Fidelity Solvers

Mohammad Kashif Zahir, Zhenghong Gao

School of Aeronautics, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an, China.

DOI: 10.4236/ojop.2012.11002                

Abstract

Variable-fidelity optimization (VFO) has emerged as an attractive method of performing, both, high-speed and high-fidelity optimization. VFO uses computationally inexpensive low-fidelity models, complemented by a surrogate to account for the difference between the high-and low-fidelity models, to obtain the optimum of the function efficiently and accurately. To be effective, however, it is of prime importance that the low fidelity model be selected prudently. This paper outlines the requirements for selecting the low fidelity model and shows pitfalls in case the wrong model is chosen. It then presents an efficient VFO framework and demonstrates it by performing transonic airfoil drag optimization at constant lift, subject to thickness constraints, using several low fidelity solvers. The method is found to be efficient and capable of finding the optimum that closely agrees with the results of high-fidelity optimization alone.

Keywords

Variable Fidelity; Airfoil Optimization; Surrogate Models

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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