KALMAN FILTERING - A NEW APPROACH FOR BUILDING GLOBAL APPROXIMATIONS - APPLICATION TO THE INVERSE OPTIMIZATION OF AN EXPLOSIVELY FORMED PENETRATOR (EFP)

As the use of approximations is often the only way to deal with the op timization of complex structures, this paper discusses the use of Kalm an filtering as a new approach for building global approximations. Bas ic ideas and procedures of Kalman filters are first recalled. Next, I; ey elements of how to implement the method for design problems are des cribed. Finally, in order to evaluate the performance of the approach, an inverse problem which consists in optimizing a warhead with respec t to constraints on the resulting projectile is studied. It is shown t hat global approximations are convenient for the solution of complex o ptimization problems and that Kalman filtering techniques appear to be an interesting strategy for the construction of global approximations in structural optimization.