An efficient strategy to incorporate designer-preferences in automated airfoil design
Robert Carrese, Manas S. Khurana, Hadi Winarto, Xiaodong Li · RMIT Research Repository (RMIT University Library) · 2011
Multi-criteria aerodynamic design problems are not easily managed, and identifying all tradeoff solutions is often unnecessary and computational exhaustive. In this paper we propose a variant of a multi-objective particle swarm heuristic, which draws on the domain knowledge of the designer to obtain solutions of interest. The swarm is guided by a reference point situated on the objective landscape. This is viewed as an intuitive means of expressing the designer's preferred level of compromise, which can ideally be based on some existing or target design. An airfoil shape optimization case-study for a multi-mission spectrum is presented. A design space visualization tool known as self-organizing maps is introduced for post-optimization trade-off analyses. The explorative proficiency of the swarm, combined with the additional guidance provided by reference point, results in a final spread of trade-off designs which provide the most resemblance in compromise to the reference point.