Enhanced Collaborative Optimization: A Decomposition-Based Method for Multidisciplinary Design

Author(s):  
Brian D. Roth ◽  
Ilan M. Kroo

Astute choices made early in the design process provide the best opportunity for reducing the life cycle cost of a new product. Optimal decisions require reasonably detailed disciplinary analyses, which pose coordination challenges. These types of complex multidisciplinary problems are best addressed through the use of decomposition-based methods, several of which have recently been developed. Two of these methods are collaborative optimization (CO) and analytical target cascading (ATC). CO was conceived in 1994 in response to multidisciplinary design needs in the aerospace industry. Recent progress has led to an updated version, enhanced collaborative optimization (ECO), that is introduced in this paper. ECO addresses many of the computational challenges inherent in CO, yielding significant computational savings and more robust solutions. ATC was formalized in 2000 to address needs in the automotive industry. While ATC was originally developed for object-based decomposition, it is also applicable to multidisciplinary design problems. In this paper, both methods are applied to a set of test cases. The goal is to introduce the ECO methodology by comparing and contrasting it with ATC, a method familiar within the mechanical engineering design community. Comparison of ECO and ATC is not intended to establish the computational superiority of either method. Rather, these two methods are compared as a means of highlighting several promising approaches to the coordination of distributed design problems.

2012 ◽  
Vol 195-196 ◽  
pp. 801-806
Author(s):  
Bei Bei Wu ◽  
Hai Huang

For the multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) question of autonomous rendezvous spacecraft, first, the analysis model and coupling relations of payload, propulsion and structure discipline are discussed; then the updated analytical target cascading (UATC) method is introduced and compared with the widely used collaborative optimization (CO). Results prove that the UATC method requires 54.8% fewer average subspace iterations than the CO and is more efficient for practical engineering MDO problem. Finally, based on the UATC method, a MDO problem of autonomous rendezvous spacecraft is solved and gets reasonable and effective results. The process proves the effectiveness of UATC method solving spacecraft MDO problem.


2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ping Jiang ◽  
Jianzhuang Wang ◽  
Qi Zhou ◽  
Xiaolin Zhang

Multidisciplinary design optimization (MDO) has been applied widely in the design of complex engineering systems. To ease MDO problems, analytical target cascading (ATC) organizes MDO process into multilevels according to the components of engineering systems, which provides a promising way to deal with MDO problems. ATC adopts a coordination strategy to coordinate the couplings between two adjacent levels in the design optimization process; however, existing coordination strategies in ATC face the obstacles of complicated coordination process and heavy computation cost. In order to conquer this problem, a quadratic exterior penalty function (QEPF) based ATC (QEPF-ATC) approach is proposed, where QEPF is adopted as the coordination strategy. Moreover, approximate models are adopted widely to replace the expensive simulation models in MDO; a QEPF-ATC and Kriging model combined approach is further proposed to deal with MDO problems, owing to the comprehensive performance, high approximation accuracy, and robustness of Kriging model. Finally, the geometric programming and reducer design cases are given to validate the applicability and efficiency of the proposed approach.


Author(s):  
Ravindra V. Tappeta ◽  
John E. Renaud

Abstract This investigation focuses on the development of modifications to the Collaborative Optimization (CO) approach to multidisciplinary systems design, that will provide solution capabilities for multiobjective problems. The primary goal of this research is to provide a comprehensive overview and development of mathematically rigorous optimization strategies for MultiObjective Collaborative Optimization (MOCO). Collaborative Optimization strategies provide design optimization capabilities to discipline designers within a multidisciplinary design environment. To date these CO strategies have primarily been applied to system design problems which have a single objective function. Recent investigations involving multidisciplinary design simulators have reported success in applying CO to multiobjective system design problems. In this research three MultiObjective Collaborative Optimization (MOCO) strategies are developed, reviewed and implemented in a comparative study. The goal of this effort is to provide an in depth comparison of different MOCO strategies available to system designers. Each of the three strategies makes use of parameter sensitivities within multilevel solution strategies. In implementation studies, each of the three MOCO strategies is effective in solving two multiobjective multidisciplinary systems design problems. Results indicate that these MOCO strategies require an accurate estimation of parameter sensitivities for successful implementation. In each of the three MOCO strategies these parameter sensitivities are obtained using post-optimality analysis techniques.


1997 ◽  
Vol 119 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-411 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. V. Tappeta ◽  
J. E. Renaud

This investigation focuses on the development of modifications to the Collaborative Optimization (CO) approach to multidisciplinary systems design, that will provide solution capabilities for multiobjective problems. The primary goal of this paper is to provide a comprehensive overview and development of mathematically rigorous optimization strategies for Multiobjective Collaborative Optimization (MOCO). Collaborative Optimization strategies provide design optimization capabilities to discipline designers within a multidisciplinary design environment. To date these CO strategies have primarily been applied to system design problems which have a single objective function. Recent investigations involving multidisciplinary design simulators have reported success in applying CO to multiobjective system design problems. In this research three Multiobjective Collaborative Optimization (MOCO) strategies are developed, reviewed and implemented in a comparative study. The goal of this effort is to provide an in depth comparison of different MOCO strategies available to system designers. Each of the three strategies makes use of parameter sensitivities within multilevel solution strategies. In implementation studies, each of the three MOCO strategies is effective in solving a multiobjective multidisciplinary systems design problem. Results indicate that these MOCO strategies require an accurate estimation of parameter sensitivities for successful implementation. In each of the three MOCO strategies these parameter sensitivities are obtained using post-optimality analysis techniques.


2012 ◽  
Vol 544 ◽  
pp. 49-54 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jun Zheng ◽  
Hao Bo Qiu ◽  
Xiao Lin Zhang

ATC provides a systematic approach in solving decomposed large scale systems that has solvable subsystems. However, complex engineering system usually has a high computational cost , which result in limiting real-life applications of ATC based on high-fidelity simulation models. To address these problems, this paper aims to develop an efficient approximation model building techniques under the analytical target cascading (ATC) framework, to reduce computational cost associated with multidisciplinary design optimization problems based on high-fidelity simulations. An approximation model building techniques is proposed: approximations in the subsystem level are based on variable-fidelity modeling (interaction of low- and high-fidelity models). The variable-fidelity modeling consists of computationally efficient simplified models (low-fidelity) and expensive detailed (high-fidelity) models. The effectiveness of the method for modeling under the ATC framework using variable-fidelity models is studied. Overall results show the methods introduced in this paper provide an effective way of improving computational efficiency of the ATC method based on variable-fidelity simulation models.


2010 ◽  
Vol 132 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeongwoo Han ◽  
Panos Y. Papalambros

Analytical target cascading (ATC) is a multidisciplinary design optimization method for multilevel hierarchical systems. To improve computational efficiency, especially for problems under uncertainty or with strong monotonicity, a sequential linear programming (SLP) algorithm was previously employed as an alternate coordination strategy to solve ATC and probabilistic ATC problems. The SLP implementation utilizes L∞ norms to maintain the linearity of SLP subsequences. This note offers a proof that there exists a set of weights such that the ATC algorithm converges when L∞ norms are used. Examples are also provided to illustrate the effectiveness of using L∞ norms as a penalty function to maintain the formulation linear and differentiable. The examples show that the proposed method provides more robust results for linearized ATC problems due to the robustness of the linear programming solver.


2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (7) ◽  
pp. 2046-2066 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zheng Jiang ◽  
Haobo Qiu ◽  
Ming Zhao ◽  
Shizhan Zhang ◽  
Liang Gao

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