M. Schwabacher et A. Gelsey, MULTILEVEL SIMULATION AND NUMERICAL OPTIMIZATION OF COMPLEX ENGINEERING DESIGNS, Journal of aircraft, 35(3), 1998, pp. 387-397
Multilevel representations have been studied extensively by artificial
intelligence researchers. We present a general method that utilizes t
he multilevel paradigm to attack the problem of performing multidiscip
line engineering design optimization in the presence of many local opt
ima. The method uses a multidisciplinary simulator at multiple levels
of abstraction, paired with a multilevel search space. We tested the m
ethod in the domain of conceptual design of supersonic transport aircr
aft, focusing on the airframe and the exhaust nozzle, and using sequen
tial quadratic programming as the optimizer at, each level. We found t
hat using multilevel simulation and optimization can decrease the cost
of design space search by an order of magnitude.