An adaptive global variable fidelity metamodeling strategy using a support vector regression based scaling function

Abstract Computational simulation models with variable fidelity have been widely used in complex systems design. However, running the most accurate simulation models tends to be very time-consuming and can therefore only be used sporadically, while incorporating less accurate, inexpensive models into the design process may result in inaccurate design alternatives. To make a trade-off between high accuracy and low expense, variable fidelity (VF) metamodeling approaches that aim to integrate information from both low-fidelity (LF) and high-fidelity (HF) models have gained increasing popularity. In this paper, an adaptive global VF metamodeling approach named difference adaptive decreasing variable-fidelity metamodeling (DAD-VFM) is proposed, in which the one-shot VF metamodeling process is transformed into an iterative process to utilize the already-acquired information of difference characteristics between the HF and LF models. In DAD-VFM, support vector regression (SVR) is adopted to map the difference between the HF and LF models. Besides, a generalized objective-oriented sampling strategy is introduced to adaptively probe and sample more points in the interesting regions where the differences between the HF and LF models are multi-model, non-smooth and have abrupt changes. Several numerical cases and a long cylinder pressure vessel optimization design problem verify the applicability of the proposed VF metamodeling approach.