arXiv subjects

Mathieu Balesdent

Publications and source records attributed to Mathieu Balesdent.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

A Methodology for Integrating Life Cycle Assessment into a Multidisciplinary Design Analysis and Optimization Framework for Sustainable Launcher Development

The increasing number of orbital and sub-orbital launches makes it necessary to investigate the environmental impacts of launch vehicles and incorporate eco-design considerations into their development. In response, the European Space Agency has promoted Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) as a standardization methodology to mitigate environmental impacts of present and future space missions. This need is further amplified in the NewSpace, where numerous configurations and innovative technologies are explored, reinforcing the importance of integrating environmental considerations. At early design stages, launch vehicle architecture can be formalized through a multi-physics optimization problem based on Multidisciplinary Design Analysis and Optimization (MDAO) methods, where disciplines such as propulsion, aerodynamics, structure, and trajectory are coupled to obtain trade-offs among candidate configurations. This paper proposes a methodology to integrate an LCA discipline within an MDAO framework for launch vehicle design. The approach relies on parametric life-cycle inventories depending on design and coupling variables, covering component and propellant production as well as transport to the launch site. Launch emissions are evaluated from optimized trajectory profiles and characterized in terms of climate change impact. The methodology is illustrated on a representative expendable launch vehicle, where multi-objective optimizations assess trade-offs between performance and environmental indicators. Results highlight antagonistic behaviors among environmental impact categories, emphasizing the importance of carefully defining environmental objectives in eco-design studies. The generic nature of the methodology lays the foundation for integrating LCA into early-stage launch vehicle design, enabling exploration of trade-offs between performance, cost, and environmental considerations.

math.OC↗

arXiv2026

Active learning strategy for excursion-set confidence regions of functional simulator outputs

Estimating excursion set confidence regions seeks to identify regions where a function may exceed some threshold with a given confidence level. This paper focuses on estimating such confidence regions in cases where the function has random inputs and a functional output that is returned all at once. We develop a surrogate-based approach for estimating the confidence region, combining principal component analysis and Gaussian process regression. An active learning strategy is also introduced, based on a max-min criterion that selects new samples which are likely to reduce the uncertainty in the confidence region. This strategy leverages efficient sampling of the Gaussian process through a Karhunen-Lo\`eve expansion. The proposed approach is applied to estimate the confidence regions of three case studies: a synthetic function, the surface pressure coefficient distribution of a hypersonic vehicle, and the glide-back trajectory of a reusable launcher first stage. The method demonstrates efficiency in accurately estimating the confidence region while reducing sources of modeling uncertainties. It is benchmarked against reference methods from the literature. Relevant metrics for assessing the confidence region estimation performance are discussed.

stat.ME↗

arXiv2024

A survey on multi-fidelity surrogates for simulators with functional outputs: unified framework and benchmark

Multi-fidelity surrogate models combining dimensionality reduction and an intermediate surrogate in the reduced space allow a cost-effective emulation of simulators with functional outputs. The surrogate is an input-output mapping learned from a limited number of simulator evaluations. This computational efficiency makes surrogates commonly used for many-query tasks. Diverse methods for building them have been proposed in the literature, but they have only been partially compared. This paper introduces a unified framework encompassing the different surrogate families, followed by a methodological comparison and the exposition of practical considerations. More than a dozen of existing multi-fidelity surrogates have been implemented under the unified framework and evaluated on a set of benchmark problems. Based on the results, guidelines and recommendations are proposed regarding multi-fidelity surrogates with functional outputs. Our study shows that most multi-fidelity surrogates outperform their tested single-fidelity counterparts under the considered settings. But no particular surrogate is performing better on every test case. Therefore, the selection of a surrogate should consider the specific properties of the emulated functions, in particular the correlation between the low- and high-fidelity simulators, the size of the training set, the local nonlinear variations in the residual fields, and the size of the training datasets.

cs.CE↗

arXiv2023

Bayesian Quality-Diversity approaches for constrained optimization problems with mixed continuous, discrete and categorical variables

Complex system design problems, such as those involved in aerospace engineering, require the use of numerically costly simulation codes in order to predict the performance of the system to be designed. In this context, these codes are often embedded into an optimization process to provide the best design while satisfying the design constraints. Recently, new approaches, called Quality-Diversity, have been proposed in order to enhance the exploration of the design space and to provide a set of optimal diversified solutions with respect to some feature functions. These functions are interesting to assess trade-offs. Furthermore, complex design problems often involve mixed continuous, discrete, and categorical design variables allowing to take into account technological choices in the optimization problem. Existing Bayesian Quality-Diversity approaches suited for intensive high-fidelity simulations are not adapted to mixed variables constrained optimization problems. In order to overcome these limitations, a new Quality-Diversity methodology based on mixed variables Bayesian optimization strategy is proposed in the context of limited simulation budget. Using adapted covariance models and dedicated enrichment strategy for the Gaussian processes in Bayesian optimization, this approach allows to reduce the computational cost up to two orders of magnitude, with respect to classical Quality-Diversity approaches while dealing with discrete choices and the presence of constraints. The performance of the proposed method is assessed on a benchmark of analytical problems as well as on two aerospace system design problems highlighting its efficiency in terms of speed of convergence. The proposed approach provides valuable trade-offs for decision-markers for complex system design.

math.OC↗

arXiv2023

A Virtual-Force Based Swarm Algorithm for Balanced Circular Bin Packing Problems

Balanced circular bin packing problems consist in positioning a given number of weighted circles in order to minimize the radius of a circular container while satisfying equilibrium constraints. These problems are NP-hard, highly constrained and dimensional. This paper describes a swarm algorithm based on a virtual-force system in order to solve balanced circular bin packing problems. In the proposed approach, a system of forces is applied to each component allowing to take into account the constraints and minimizing the objective function using the fundamental principle of dynamics. The proposed algorithm is experimented and validated on benchmarks of various balanced circular bin packing problems with up to 300 circles. The reported results allow to assess the effectiveness of the proposed approach compared to existing results from the literature.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2022

Hidden-Variables Genetic Algorithm for Variable-Size Design Space Optimal Layout Problems with Application to Aerospace Vehicles

The optimal layout of a complex system such as aerospace vehicles consists in placing a given number of components in a container in order to minimize one or several objectives under some geometrical or functional constraints. This paper presents an extended formulation of this problem as a variable-size design space (VSDS) problem to take into account a large number of architectural choices and components allocation during the design process. As a representative example of such systems, considering the layout of a satellite module, the VSDS aspect translates the fact that the optimizer has to choose between several subdivisions of the components. For instance, one large tank of fuel might be placed as well as two smaller tanks or three even smaller tanks for the same amount of fuel. In order to tackle this NP-hard problem, a genetic algorithm enhanced by an adapted hidden-variables mechanism is proposed. This latter is illustrated on a toy case and an aerospace application case representative to real world complexity to illustrate the performance of the proposed algorithms. The results obtained using the proposed mechanism are reported and analyzed.

cs.AI↗

arXiv2020

Overview of Gaussian process based multi-fidelity techniques with variable relationship between fidelities

The design process of complex systems such as new configurations of aircraft or launch vehicles is usually decomposed in different phases which are characterized for instance by the depth of the analyses in terms of number of design variables and fidelity of the physical models. At each phase, the designers have to compose with accurate but computationally intensive models as well as cheap but inaccurate models. Multi-fidelity modeling is a way to merge different fidelity models to provide engineers with accurate results with a limited computational cost. Within the context of multi-fidelity modeling, approaches relying on Gaussian Processes emerge as popular techniques to fuse information between the different fidelity models. The relationship between the fidelity models is a key aspect in multi-fidelity modeling. This paper provides an overview of Gaussian process-based multi-fidelity modeling techniques for variable relationship between the fidelity models (e.g., linearity, non-linearity, variable correlation). Each technique is described within a unified framework and the links between the different techniques are highlighted. All the approaches are numerically compared on a series of analytical test cases and four aerospace related engineering problems in order to assess their benefits and disadvantages with respect to the problem characteristics.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2020

Multi-fidelity modeling with different input domain definitions using Deep Gaussian Processes

Multi-fidelity approaches combine different models built on a scarce but accurate data-set (high-fidelity data-set), and a large but approximate one (low-fidelity data-set) in order to improve the prediction accuracy. Gaussian Processes (GPs) are one of the popular approaches to exhibit the correlations between these different fidelity levels. Deep Gaussian Processes (DGPs) that are functional compositions of GPs have also been adapted to multi-fidelity using the Multi-Fidelity Deep Gaussian process model (MF-DGP). This model increases the expressive power compared to GPs by considering non-linear correlations between fidelities within a Bayesian framework. However, these multi-fidelity methods consider only the case where the inputs of the different fidelity models are defined over the same domain of definition (e.g., same variables, same dimensions). However, due to simplification in the modeling of the low-fidelity, some variables may be omitted or a different parametrization may be used compared to the high-fidelity model. In this paper, Deep Gaussian Processes for multi-fidelity (MF-DGP) are extended to the case where a different parametrization is used for each fidelity. The performance of the proposed multifidelity modeling technique is assessed on analytical test cases and on structural and aerodynamic real physical problems.

cs.LG↗

arXiv2020

Bayesian optimization of variable-size design space problems

Within the framework of complex system design, it is often necessary to solve mixed variable optimization problems, in which the objective and constraint functions can depend simultaneously on continuous and discrete variables. Additionally, complex system design problems occasionally present a variable-size design space. This results in an optimization problem for which the search space varies dynamically (with respect to both number and type of variables) along the optimization process as a function of the values of specific discrete decision variables. Similarly, the number and type of constraints can vary as well. In this paper, two alternative Bayesian Optimization-based approaches are proposed in order to solve this type of optimization problems. The first one consists in a budget allocation strategy allowing to focus the computational budget on the most promising design sub-spaces. The second approach, instead, is based on the definition of a kernel function allowing to compute the covariance between samples characterized by partially different sets of variables. The results obtained on analytical and engineering related test-cases show a faster and more consistent convergence of both proposed methods with respect to the standard approaches.

math.OC↗

arXiv2019

Bayesian Optimization using Deep Gaussian Processes

Bayesian Optimization using Gaussian Processes is a popular approach to deal with the optimization of expensive black-box functions. However, because of the a priori on the stationarity of the covariance matrix of classic Gaussian Processes, this method may not be adapted for non-stationary functions involved in the optimization problem. To overcome this issue, a new Bayesian Optimization approach is proposed. It is based on Deep Gaussian Processes as surrogate models instead of classic Gaussian Processes. This modeling technique increases the power of representation to capture the non-stationarity by simply considering a functional composition of stationary Gaussian Processes, providing a multiple layer structure. This paper proposes a new algorithm for Global Optimization by coupling Deep Gaussian Processes and Bayesian Optimization. The specificities of this optimization method are discussed and highlighted with academic test cases. The performance of the proposed algorithm is assessed on analytical test cases and an aerospace design optimization problem and compared to the state-of-the-art stationary and non-stationary Bayesian Optimization approaches.

stat.ML↗

arXiv2019

Safety-margin-based design and redesign considering mixed epistemic model uncertainty and aleatory parameter uncertainty

At the initial design stage engineers often rely on low-fidelity models that have high epistemic uncertainty. Traditional safety-margin-based deterministic design resorts to testing (e.g. prototype experiment, evaluation of high-fidelity simulation, etc.) to reduce epistemic uncertainty and achieve targeted levels of safety. Testing is used to calibrate models and prescribe redesign when tests are not passed. After calibration, reduced epistemic model uncertainty can be leveraged through redesign to restore safety or improve design performance; however, redesign may be associated with substantial costs or delays. In this paper, a methodology is described for optimizing the safety-margin-based design, testing, and redesign process to allow the designer to tradeoff between the risk of future redesign and the possible performance and reliability benefits. The proposed methodology represents the epistemic model uncertainty with a Kriging surrogate and is applicable in a wide range of design problems. The method is illustrated on a cantilever beam bending example and then a sounding rocket example. It is shown that redesign acts as a type of quality control measure to prevent an undesirable initial design from being accepted as the final design. It is found that the optimal design/redesign strategy for maximizing expected design performance includes not only redesign to correct an initial design that is later revealed to be unsafe, but also redesign to improve performance when an initial design is later revealed to be too conservative (e.g. too heavy).

stat.AP↗

arXiv2018

Efficient Global Optimization using Deep Gaussian Processes

Efficient Global Optimization (EGO) is widely used for the optimization of computationally expensive black-box functions. It uses a surrogate modeling technique based on Gaussian Processes (Kriging). However, due to the use of a stationary covariance, Kriging is not well suited for approximating non stationary functions. This paper explores the integration of Deep Gaussian processes (DGP) in EGO framework to deal with the non-stationary issues and investigates the induced challenges and opportunities. Numerical experimentations are performed on analytical problems to highlight the different aspects of DGP and EGO.

math.OC↗

arXiv2018

Efficient global optimization of constrained mixed variable problems

Due to the increasing demand for high performance and cost reduction within the framework of complex system design, numerical optimization of computationally costly problems is an increasingly popular topic in most engineering fields. In this paper, several variants of the Efficient Global Optimization algorithm for costly constrained problems depending simultaneously on continuous decision variables as well as on quantitative and/or qualitative discrete design parameters are proposed. The adaptation that is considered is based on a redefinition of the Gaussian Process kernel as a product between the standard continuous kernel and a second kernel representing the covariance between the discrete variable values. Several parameterizations of this discrete kernel, with their respective strengths and weaknesses, are discussed in this paper. The novel algorithms are tested on a number of analytical test-cases and an aerospace related design problem, and it is shown that they require fewer function evaluations in order to converge towards the neighborhoods of the problem optima when compared to more commonly used optimization algorithms.

math.OC↗