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This survey compiles ideas and recommendations from more than a dozen researchers with different backgrounds and from different institutes around the world. Promoting best practice in benchmarking is its main goal. The article discusses eight essential topics in benchmarking: clearly stated goals, well- specified problems, suitable algorithms, adequate performance measures, thoughtful analysis, effective and efficient designs, comprehensible presentations, and guaranteed reproducibility. The final goal is to provide well-accepted guidelines (rules) that might be useful for authors and reviewers. As benchmarking in optimization is an active and evolving field of research this manuscript is meant to co-evolve over time by means of periodic updates.
Cyclone separators are popular devices used to filter dust from the emitted flue gases. They are applied as pre-filters in many industrial processes including energy production and grain processing facilities.
Increasing computational power and the availability of 3D printers provide new tools for the combination of modeling and experimentation, which necessary for constructing efficient cyclones. Several simulation tools can be run in parallel, e.g., long running CFD simulations can be accompanied by experiments with 3D printers. Furthermore, results from analytical and data-driven models can be incorporated. There are fundamental differences between these modeling approaches: some models, e.g., analytical models, use domain knowledge, whereas data-driven models do not require any information about the underlying processes.
At the same time, data-driven models require input and output data, whereas analytical models do not. Combining results from models with different input-output structure is of great interest. This combination inspired the development of a new methodology. An optimization via multimodel simulation approach, which combines results from different models, is introduced.
Using cyclonic dust separators (cyclones) as a real-world simulation problem, the feasibility of this approach is demonstrated. Pros and cons of this approach are discussed and experiences from the experiments are presented.
Furthermore, technical problems, which are related to 3D-printing approaches, are discussed.
We propose to apply typed Genetic Programming (GP) to the problem of finding surrogate-model ensembles for global optimization on compute-intensive target functions. In a model ensemble, base-models such as linear models, random forest models, or Kriging models, as well as pre- and post-processing methods, are combined. In theory, an optimal ensemble will join the strengths of its comprising base-models while avoiding their weaknesses, offering higher prediction accuracy and robustness. This study defines a grammar of model ensemble expressions and searches the set for optimal ensembles via GP. We performed an extensive experimental study based on 10 different objective functions and 2 sets of base-models. We arrive at promising results, as on unseen test data, our ensembles perform not significantly worse than the best base-model.
Sequential Parameter Optimization is a model-based optimization methodology, which includes several techniques for handling uncertainty. Simple approaches such as sharp- ening and more sophisticated approaches such as optimal computing budget allocation are available. For many real world engineering problems, the objective function can be evaluated at different levels of fidelity. For instance, a CFD simulation might provide a very time consuming but accurate way to estimate the quality of a solution.The same solution could be evaluated based on simplified mathematical equations, leading to a cheaper but less accurate estimate. Combining these different levels of fidelity in a model-based optimization process is referred to as multi-fidelity optimization. This chapter describes uncertainty-handling techniques for meta-model based search heuristics in combination with multi-fidelity optimization. Co-Kriging is one power- ful method to correlate multiple sets of data from different levels of fidelity. For the first time, Sequential Parameter Optimization with co-Kriging is applied to noisy test functions. This study will introduce these techniques and discuss how they can be applied to real-world examples.
Dieser Schlussbericht beschreibt die im Projekt „CI-basierte mehrkriterielle Optimierungsverfahren für Anwendungen in der Industrie“ (CIMO) im Zeitraum von November 2011 bis einschließlich Oktober 2014 erzielten Ergebnisse. Für aufwändige Optimierungsprobleme aus der Industrie wurden geeignete Lösungsverfahren entwickelt. Der Schwerpunkt lag hierbei auf Methoden aus den Bereichen Computational Intelligence (CI) und Surrogatmodellierung. Diese bieten die Möglichkeit, wichtige Herausforderung von aufwändigen, komplexen Optimierungsproblemen zu lösen. Die entwickelten Methoden können verschiedene konfliktäre Zielgrößen berücksichtigen, verschiedene Hierarchieebenen des Problems in die Optimierung integrieren, Nebenbedingungen beachten, vektorielle aber auch strukturierte Daten verarbeiten (kombinatorische Optimierung) sowie die Notwendigkeit teurer/zeitaufwändiger Zielfunktionsberechnungen reduzieren. Die entwickelten Methoden wurden schwerpunktmäßig auf einer Problemstellung aus der Kraftwerkstechnik angewendet, nämlich der Optimierung der Geometrie eines Fliehkraftabscheiders (auch: Zyklon), der Staubanteile aus Abgasen filtert. Das Optimierungsproblem, das diese FIiehkraftabscheider aufwerfen, führt zu konfliktären Zielsetzungen (z.B. Druckverlust, Abscheidegrad). Zyklone können unter anderem über aufwändige Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) Simulationen berechnet werden, es stehen aber auch einfache analytische Gleichungen als Schätzung zu Verfügung. Die Verknüpfung von beidem zeigt hier beispielhaft wie Hierarchieebenen eines Optimierungsproblems mit den Methoden des Projektes verbunden werden können. Neben dieser Schwerpunktanwendung konnte auch gezeigt werden, dass die Methoden in vielen weiteren Bereichen Erfolgreich zur Anwendung kommen können: Biogaserzeugung, Wasserwirtschaft, Stahlindustrie. Die besondere Herausforderung der behandelten Probleme und Methoden bietet viele wichtige Forschungsmöglichkeiten für zukünftige Projekte, die derzeit durch die Projektpartner vorbereitet werden.
Computational intelligence methods have gained importance in several real-world domains such as process optimization, system identification, data mining, or statistical quality control. Tools are missing, which determine the applicability of computational intelligence methods in these application domains in an objective manner. Statistics provide methods for comparing algorithms on certain data sets. In the past, several test suites were presented and considered as state of the art. However, there are several drawbacks of these test suites, namely: (i) problem instances are somehow artificial and have no direct link to real-world settings; (ii) since there is a fixed number of test instances, algorithms can be fitted or tuned to this specific and very limited set of test functions; (iii) statistical tools for comparisons of several algorithms on several test problem instances are relatively complex and not easily to analyze. We propose amethodology to overcome these dificulties. It is based on standard ideas from statistics: analysis of variance and its extension to mixed models. This work combines essential ideas from two approaches: problem generation and statistical analysis of computer experiments.
Evolutionary algorithm (EA) is an umbrella term used to describe population-based stochastic direct search algorithms that in some sense mimic natural evolution. Prominent representatives of such algorithms are genetic algorithms, evolution strategies, evolutionary programming, and genetic programming. On the basis of the evolutionary cycle, similarities and differences between these algorithms are described. We briefly discuss how EAs can be adapted to work well in case of multiple objectives, and dynamic or noisy optimization problems. We look at the tuning of algorithms and present some recent developments coming from theory. Finally, typical applications of EAs to real-world problems are shown, with special emphasis on data-mining applications
There is a strong need for sound statistical analysis of simulation and optimization algorithms. Based on this analysis, improved parameter settings can be determined. This will be referred to as tuning. Model-based investigations are common approaches in simulation and optimization. The sequential parameter optimization toolbox (SPOT), which is implemented as a package for the statistical programming language R, provides sophisticated means for tuning and understanding simulation and optimization algorithms. The toolbox includes methods for tuning based on classical regression and analysis of variance techniques; tree-based models such as classification and regressions trees (CART) and random forest; Gaussian process models (Kriging), and combinations of different meta-modeling approaches. This article exemplifies how an existing optimization algorithm, namely simulated annealing, can be tuned using the SPOT framework.
Formerly, multi-criteria optimization algorithms were often tested using tens of thousands function evaluations. In many real-world settings function evaluations are very costly or the available budget is very limited. Several methods were developed to solve these cost-extensive multi-criteria optimization problems by reducing the number of function evaluations by means of surrogate optimization. In this study, we apply different multi-criteria surrogate optimization methods to improve (tune) an event-detection software for water-quality monitoring. For tuning two important parameters of this software, four state-of-the-art methods are compared: S-Metric-Selection Efficient Global Optimization (SMS-EGO), S-Metric-Expected Improvement for Efficient Global Optimization SExI-EGO, Euclidean Distance based Expected Improvement Euclid-EI (here referred to as MEI-SPOT due to its implementation in the Sequential Parameter Optimization Toolbox SPOT) and a multi-criteria approach based on SPO (MSPOT). Analyzing the performance of the different methods provides insight into the working-mechanisms of cutting-edge multi-criteria solvers. As one of the approaches, namely MSPOT, does not consider the prediction variance of the surrogate model, it is of interest whether this can lead to premature convergence on the practical tuning problem. Furthermore, all four approaches will be compared to a simple SMS-EMOA to validate that the use of surrogate models is justified on this problem.
Computational intelligence methods have gained importance in several real-world domains such as process optimization, system identification, data mining, or statistical quality control. Tools are missing, which determine the applicability of computational intelligence methods in these application domains in an objective manner. Statistics provide methods for comparing algorithms on certain data sets. In the past, several test suites were presented and considered as state of the art. However, there are several drawbacks of these test suites, namely: (i) problem instances are somehow artificial and have no direct link to real-world settings; (ii) since there is a fixed number of test instances, algorithms can be fitted or tuned to this specific and very limited set of test functions; (iii) statistical tools for comparisons of several algorithms on several test problem instances are relatively complex and not easily to analyze. We propose a methodology to overcome these difficulties. It is based on standard ideas from statistics: analysis of variance and its extension to mixed models. This paper combines essential ideas from two approaches: problem generation and statistical analysis of computer experiments.
Multi-criteria optimization has gained increasing attention during the last decades. This article exemplifies multi-criteria features, which are implemented in the statistical software package SPOT. It describes related software packages such as mco and emoa and gives a comprehensive introduction to simple multi criteria optimization tasks. Several hands-on examples are used for illustration. The article is well-suited as a starting point for performing multi-criteria optimization tasks with SPOT.
Dieser Schlussbericht beschreibt die im Projekt „Methoden der Computational Intelligence für Vorhersagemodelle in der Finanzund Wasserwirtschaft“ (FIWA) im Zeitraum von Juni 2009 bis einschließlich November 2012 erzielten Ergebnisse. In der Praxis werden für diese Vorhersagemodelle Verfahren der linearen und nichtlinearen Regression, NN, Support Vector Machines (SVM) und viele weitere Verfahren eingesetzt. Das Projekt FIWA befasste sich mit der Entwicklung modularer Systeme zur Analyse und Prognose von Daten aus der Finanz- und Wasserwirtschaft mittels Verfahren der Computational Intelligence (CI) mit methodischem Fokus auf dem CI-Unterbereich Genetic Programming (GP). Ein zentrales Ergebnis der wissenschaftlichtechnischen Arbeit im Projekt FIWA ist die Entwicklung der Open-Source Software RGP. Dabei handelt es sich um ein Software- Framework für GP, welches auf die automatische Erstellung von Vorhersagemodellen spezialisiert ist. Für die Finanzwirtschaft stand ein Handelssimulator zu Verfügung, der auf Basis von echten Finanzdaten die Qualität verschiedener Strategien testen kann. Dieser wurde im Projekt weiterentwickelt. GP wurde genutzt, um auf Basis der Simulationen genaue Vorhersagen und damit verbesserte Handelsstrategien zu entwerfen. Auch für die Wasserwirtschaft wurden Prognoseverfahren mit GP entwickelt. Der Schwerpunkt lag dabei auf der Füllstandprognose für Regenüberlaufbecken. Hier konnten moderne Verfahren mit GP oder SVM klassische Methoden deutlich schlagen oder verbessern. Auch der Einsatz von Sequentieller Parameter Optimierung zeigte signifikante Verbesserungen für die Prognosegenauigkeit. Dabei war die Kombination von klassischen Methoden und GP besonders erfolgreich. GP ist nach wie vor ein sehr aktives Forschungsgebiet und erlaubt auch für die Folgezeit zahlreiche Kooperationen mit den Partnern der Fachhochschule Köln. Sowohl für technische Anwendungen als auch zur Lösung von Forschungsfragen bieten sich zahlreiche Möglichkeiten an.
This paper introduces UniFIeD, a new data preprocessing method for time series. UniFIeD can cope with large intervals of missing data. A scalable test function generator, which allows the simulation of time series with different gap sizes, is presented additionally. An experimental study demonstrates that (i) UniFIeD shows a significant better performance than simple imputation methods and (ii) UniFIeD is able to handle situations, where advanced imputation methods fail. The results are independent from the underlying error measurements.
An essential task for operation and planning of biogas plants is the optimization of substrate feed mixtures. Optimizing the monetary gain requires the determination of the exact amounts of maize, manure, grass silage, and other substrates. Accurate simulation models are mandatory for this optimization, because the underlying chemical processes are very slow. The simulation models themselves may be time-consuming to evaluate, hence we show how to use surrogate-model-based approaches to optimize biogas plants efficiently. In detail, a Kriging surrogate is employed. To improve model quality of this surrogate, we integrate cheaply available data into the optimization process. Doing so, Multi-fidelity modeling methods like Co-Kriging are employed. Furthermore, a two-layered modeling approach is employed to avoid deterioration of model quality due to discontinuities in the search space. At the same time, the cheaply available data is shown to be very useful for initialization of the employed optimization algorithms. Overall, we show how biogas plants can be efficiently modeled using data-driven methods, avoiding discontinuities as well as including cheaply available data. The application of the derived surrogate models to an optimization process is shown to be very difficult, yet successful for a lower problem dimension.
Ziel des Forschungsprojektes "Mehrkriterielle CI-basierte Optimierungsverfahren für den industriellen Einsatz" (MCIOP) war die Verringerung von Schadstoffemissionen in Kohlekraftwerken. Der wissenschaftliche Fokus lag auf der Entwicklung von Methoden, die in der Lage sind, interpretierbare Modelle für die Schadstoffemissionen automatisch zu generieren. Hierzu wurden mehrkriterielle Optimierungsverfahren entwickelt und eingesetzt. Zur Zeit- und Kostenreduktion wurde die Optimierung durch Surrogat-Modelle erfolgen, die abgestuft mit aufwändigeren Simulationen zum Einsatz kamen („optimization via simulation“). Bei der Untersuchung von Staubabscheidern konnten durch eine mehrkriterielle Optimierung unterschiedliche Zielgrößen, wie z.B. Abscheidegrad und Druckverlust, gleichzeitig berücksichtigt werden.
Dieser Bericht beschreibt die im Projekt MCIOP im Zeitraum von August 2011 bis einschließlich Juni 2015 erzielten Ergebnisse.
Forschendes Lernen versteht sich als ein methodisches Prinzip, das Forschungsorientierung und Verknüpfung von Forschung und Lehre in die Studiengänge und Lehrveranstaltungen integriert und für studentische Lernprozesse nutzbringend anwendet. Studierende sind dabei Teil der Scientific Community.
Dieser Artikel ist ein Erfahrungsbericht, in dem das Konzept des „Forschenden Lernens“ in einer Variante vorgestellt wird, die in den letzten zehn Jahren an einer deutschen Fachhochschule für ingenieurwissenschaftliche Studiengänge entwickelt wurde.
Da es „das“ Forschende Lernen nicht gibt, werden zunächst die für diesen Artikel relevanten Gesichtspunkte zusammengestellt. Darauf aufbauend wird ein Prozessmodell des Forschenden Lernens vorgestellt. Dieses Modell ermöglicht Forschendes Lernen für Bachelor- und Masterstudierende sowie für Doktorandinnen und Doktoranden.
This paper proposes an experimental methodology for on-line machine learning algorithms, i.e., for algorithms that work on data that are available in a sequential order.
It is demonstrated how established tools from experimental algorithmics (EA) can be applied in the on-line or streaming data setting.
The massive on-line analysis (MOA) framework is used to perform the experiments.
Benefits of a well-defined report structure are discussed.
The application of methods from the EA community to on-line or streaming data is referred to as experimental algorithmics for streaming data (EADS).
In this paper we present a comparison of different data driven modeling methods. The first instance of a data driven linear Bayesian model is compared with several linear regression models, a Kriging model and a genetic programming model.
The models are build on industrial data for the development of a robust gas sensor.
The data contain limited amount of samples and a high variance.
The mean square error of the models implemented in a test dataset is used as the comparison strategy.
The results indicate that standard linear regression approaches as well as Kriging and GP show good results,
whereas the Bayesian approach, despite the fact that it requires additional resources, does not lead to improved results.
When using machine learning techniques for learning a function approximation from given data it is often a difficult task to select the right modeling technique.
In many real-world settings is no preliminary knowledge about the objective function available. Then it might be beneficial if the algorithm could learn all models by itself and select the model that suits best to the problem.
This approach is known as automated model selection. In this work we propose a
generalization of this approach.
It combines the predictions of several into one more accurate ensemble surrogate model. This approach is studied in a fundamental way, by first evaluating minimalistic ensembles of only two surrogate models in detail and then proceeding to ensembles with three and more surrogate models.
The results show to what extent combinations of models can perform better than single surrogate models and provides insights into the scalability and robustness of the approach. The study focuses on multi-modal functions topologies, which are important in surrogate-assisted global optimization.
This report presents a practical approach to stacked generalization in surrogate model based optimization. It exemplifies the integration of stacking methods into the surrogate model building process. First, a brief overview of the current state in surrogate model based opti- mization is presented. Stacked generalization is introduced as a promising ensemble surrogate modeling approach. Then two examples (the first is based on a real world application and the second on a set of artificial test functions) are presented. These examples clearly illustrate two properties of stacked generalization: (i) combining information from two poor performing models can result in a good performing model and (ii) even if the ensemble contains a good performing model, combining its information with information from poor performing models results in a relatively small performance decrease only.
Surrogate-based optimization and nature-inspired metaheuristics have become the state of the art in solving real-world optimization problems. Still, it is difficult for beginners and even experts to get an overview that explains their advantages in comparison to the large number of available methods in the scope of continuous optimization. Available taxonomies lack the integration of surrogate-based approaches and thus their embedding in the larger context of this broad field.
This article presents a taxonomy of the field, which further matches the idea of nature-inspired algorithms, as it is based on the human behavior in path finding. Intuitive analogies make it easy to conceive the most basic principles of the search algorithms, even for beginners and non-experts in this area of research. However, this scheme does not oversimplify the high complexity of the different algorithms, as the class identifier only defines a descriptive meta-level of the algorithm search strategies. The taxonomy was established by exploring and matching algorithm schemes, extracting similarities and differences, and creating a set of classification indicators to distinguish between five distinct classes. In practice, this taxonomy allows recommendations for the applicability of the corresponding algorithms and helps developers trying to create or improve their own algorithms.
Modelling Zero-inflated Rainfall Data through the Use of Gaussian Process and Bayesian Regression
(2018)
Rainfall is a key parameter for understanding the water cycle. An accurate rainfall measurement is vital in the development of hydrological models. By means of indirect measurement, satellites can nowadays estimate the rainfall around the world. However, these measurements are not always accurate. As a first approach to generate a bias-corrected rainfall estimate using satellite data, the performance of Gaussian process and Bayesian regression is studied. The results show Gaussian process as the better option for this dataset but leave place to improvements on both modelling strategies.
Increasing computational power and the availability of 3D printers provide new tools for the combination of modeling and experimentation. Several simulation tools can be run independently and in parallel, e.g., long running computational fluid dynamics simulations can be accompanied by experiments with 3D printers. Furthermore, results from analytical and data-driven models can be incorporated. However, there are fundamental differences between these modeling approaches: some models, e.g., analytical models, use domain knowledge, whereas data-driven models do not require any information about the underlying processes.
At the same time, data-driven models require input and output data, but analytical models do not. Combining results from models with different input-output structures might improve and accelerate the optimization process. The optimization via multimodel simulation (OMMS) approach, which is able to combine results from these different models, is introduced in this paper.
Using cyclonic dust separators as a real-world simulation problem, the feasibility of this approach is demonstrated and a proof-of-concept is presented. Cyclones are popular devices used to filter dust from the emitted flue gases. They are applied as pre-filters in many industrial processes including energy production and grain processing facilities. Pros and cons of this multimodel optimization approach are discussed and experiences from experiments are presented.
The availability of several CPU cores on current computers enables
parallelization and increases the computational power significantly.
Optimization algorithms have to be adapted to exploit these highly
parallelized systems and evaluate multiple candidate solutions in
each iteration. This issue is especially challenging for expensive
optimization problems, where surrogate models are employed to
reduce the load of objective function evaluations.
This paper compares different approaches for surrogate modelbased
optimization in parallel environments. Additionally, an easy
to use method, which was developed for an industrial project, is
proposed. All described algorithms are tested with a variety of
standard benchmark functions. Furthermore, they are applied to
a real-world engineering problem, the electrostatic precipitator
problem. Expensive computational fluid dynamics simulations are
required to estimate the performance of the precipitator. The task
is to optimize a gas-distribution system so that a desired velocity
distribution is achieved for the gas flow throughout the precipitator.
The vast amount of possible configurations leads to a complex
discrete valued optimization problem. The experiments indicate
that a hybrid approach works best, which proposes candidate solutions
based on different surrogate model-based infill criteria and
evolutionary operators.
When researchers and practitioners in the field of
computational intelligence are confronted with real-world
problems, the question arises which method is the best to
apply. Nowadays, there are several, well established test
suites and well known artificial benchmark functions
available.
However, relevance and applicability of these methods to
real-world problems remains an open question in many
situations. Furthermore, the generalizability of these
methods cannot be taken for granted.
This paper describes a data-driven approach for the
generation of test instances, which is based on
real-world data. The test instance generation uses
data-preprocessing, feature extraction, modeling, and
parameterization. We apply this methodology on a classical
design of experiment real-world project and generate test
instances for benchmarking, e.g. design methods, surrogate
techniques, and optimization algorithms. While most
available results of methods applied on real-world
problems lack availability of the data for comparison,
our future goal is to create a toolbox covering multiple
data sets of real-world projects to provide a test
function generator to the research community.
Data pre-processing is a key research topic in data mining because it plays a
crucial role in improving the accuracy of any data mining algorithm. In most
real world cases, a significant amount of the recorded data is found missing
due to most diverse errors. This loss of data is nearly always unavoidable.
Recovery of missing data plays a vital role in avoiding inaccurate data
mining decisions. Most multivariate imputation methods are not compatible
to univariate datasets and the traditional univariate imputation techniques
become highly biased as the missing data gap increases. With the current
technological advancements abundant data is being captured every second.
Hence, we intend to develop a new algorithm that enables maximum
utilization of the available big datasets for imputation. In this paper, we
present a Seasonal and Trend decomposition using Loess (STL) based
Seasonal Moving Window Algorithm, which is capable of handling patterns
with trend as well as cyclic characteristics. We show that the algorithm is
highly suitable for pre-processing of large datasets.
The use of surrogate models is a standard method to deal with complex, realworld
optimization problems. The first surrogate models were applied to continuous
optimization problems. In recent years, surrogate models gained importance
for discrete optimization problems. This article, which consists of three
parts, takes care of this development. The first part presents a survey of modelbased
methods, focusing on continuous optimization. It introduces a taxonomy,
which is useful as a guideline for selecting adequate model-based optimization
tools. The second part provides details for the case of discrete optimization
problems. Here, six strategies for dealing with discrete data structures are introduced.
A new approach for combining surrogate information via stacking
is proposed in the third part. The implementation of this approach will be
available in the open source R package SPOT2. The article concludes with a
discussion of recent developments and challenges in both application domains.
This paper introduces CAAI, a novel cognitive architecture for artificial intelligence in cyber-physical production systems. The goal of the architecture is to reduce the implementation effort for the usage of artificial intelligence algorithms. The core of the CAAI is a cognitive module that processes declarative goals of the user, selects suitable models and algorithms, and creates a configuration for the execution of a processing pipeline on a big data platform. Constant observation and evaluation against performance criteria assess the performance of pipelines for many and varying use cases. Based on these evaluations, the pipelines are automatically adapted if necessary. The modular design with well-defined interfaces enables the reusability and extensibility of pipeline components. A big data platform implements this modular design supported by technologies such as Docker, Kubernetes, and Kafka for virtualization and orchestration of the individual components and their communication. The implementation of the architecture is evaluated using a real-world use case.
We propose a hybridization approach called Regularized-Surrogate- Optimization (RSO) aimed at overcoming difficulties related to high- dimensionality. It combines standard Kriging-based SMBO with regularization techniques. The employed regularization methods use the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO). An extensive study is performed on a set of artificial test functions and two real-world applications: the electrostatic precipitator problem and a multilayered composite design problem. Experiments reveal that RSO requires significantly less time than Kriging to obtain comparable results. The pros and cons of the RSO approach are discussed and recommendations for practitioners are presented.
To maximize the throughput of a hot rolling mill,
the number of passes has to be reduced. This can be achieved by maximizing the thickness reduction in each pass. For this purpose, exact predictions of roll force and torque are required. Hence, the predictive models that describe the physical behavior of the product have to be accurate and cover a wide range of different materials.
Due to market requirements a lot of new materials are tested and rolled. If these materials are chosen to be rolled more often, a suitable flow curve has to be established. It is not reasonable to determine those flow curves in laboratory, because of costs and time. A strong demand for quick parameter determination and the optimization of flow curve parameter with minimum costs is the logical consequence. Therefore parameter estimation and the optimization with real data, which were collected during previous runs, is a promising idea. Producers benefit from this data-driven approach and receive a huge gain in flexibility when rolling new
materials, optimizing current production, and increasing quality. This concept would also allow to optimize flow curve parameters, which have already been treated by standard methods. In this article, a new data-driven approach for predicting the physical behavior of the product and setting important parameters is presented.
We demonstrate how the prediction quality of the roll force and roll torque can be optimized sustainably. This offers the opportunity to continuously increase the workload in each pass to the theoretical maximum while product quality and process stability can also be improved.
The performance of optimization algorithms relies crucially on their parameterizations. Finding good parameter settings is called algorithm tuning. Using
a simple simulated annealing algorithm, we will demonstrate how optimization algorithms can be tuned using the Sequential Parameter Optimization Toolbox (SPOT). SPOT provides several tools for automated and interactive tuning. The underlying concepts of the SPOT approach are explained. This includes key techniques such as exploratory fitness landscape analysis and response surface methodology. Many examples illustrate
how SPOT can be used for understanding the performance of algorithms and gaining insight into algorithm behavior. Furthermore, we demonstrate how SPOT can be used as an optimizer and how a sophisticated ensemble approach is able to combine several meta models via stacking.
Surrogate-assisted optimization has proven to be very successful if applied to industrial problems. The use of a data-driven surrogate model of an objective function during an optimization cycle has many bene ts, such as being cheap to evaluate and further providing both information about the objective landscape and the parameter space. In preliminary work, it was researched how surrogate-assisted optimization can help to optimize the structure of a neural network (NN) controller. In this work, we will focus on how surrogates can help to improve the direct learning process of a transparent feed-forward neural network controller. As an initial case study we will consider a manageable real-world control task: the elevator supervisory group problem (ESGC) using a simplified simulation model. We use this model as a benchmark which should indicate the applicability and performance of surrogate-assisted optimization to this kind of tasks. While the optimization process itself is in this case not onsidered expensive, the results show that surrogate-assisted optimization is capable of outperforming metaheuristic optimization methods for a low number of evaluations. Further the surrogate can be used for signi cance analysis of the inputs and weighted connections to further exploit problem information.
As the amount of data gathered by monitoring systems increases, using computational tools to analyze it becomes a necessity.
Machine learning algorithms can be used in both regression and classification problems, providing useful insights while avoiding the bias and proneness to errors of humans. In this paper, a specific kind of decision tree algorithm, called conditional inference tree, is used to extract relevant knowledge from data that pertains to electrical motors. The model is chosen due to its flexibility, strong statistical foundation, as well as great capabilities to generalize and cope with problems in the data. The obtained knowledge is organized in a structured way and then analyzed in the context of health condition monitoring. The final
results illustrate how the approach can be used to gain insight into the system and present the results in an understandable, user-friendly manner
Faserverbundwerkstoffe (FVW) und Composites haben in der Luft- und Raumfahrtindustrie, im Automobilbau, beim Bau von Windenergieanlagen und in vielen weiteren zukunftsträchtigen Branchen eine große Bedeutung. Maßnahmen, die ein Erkennen von Schädigungen simultan zur Entstehung ermöglichen und Restbetriebszeiten prognostizieren können, sind geeignet, die Lebensdauer von FVW-Konstruktionen zu erhöhen. Darüber hinaus ist eine zustandsorientierte und somit kosteneffektive Wartung dieser Bauteile möglich.
Sowohl die Prognose, als auch die Detektion von Schäden würde den ressourcenschonenden Einsatz dieser Werkstoff-gruppe ermöglichen. Das sogenannte Structural Health Monitoring (SHM) bezeichnet in diesem Zusammenhang eine Methode, die es ermöglicht, kontinuierlich Anhalts-punkte über die Funktionsfähigkeit von Bauteilen und Konstruktionen zu erhalten.
Dieser Artikel beschreibt die Planung, Durchführung und Analyse von SHM-Experimenten. Das Hauptziel bestand in der Planung von Experimenten zur Gewinnung von Messdaten mittels piezoelektrischen Elementen auf Versuchstafeln, bei denen bewusst trukturbeschädigungen eingebracht wurden. Statistische Auswertungsmethoden sollen auf ihre Eignung getestet werden, Rückschlüsse aus den experimentell gewonnenen Daten auf die Art der Strukturbeschädigungen zu ziehen.
When designing or developing optimization algorithms, test functions are crucial to evaluate
performance. Often, test functions are not sufficiently difficult, diverse, flexible or relevant to real-world
applications. Previously,
test functions with real-world relevance were generated by training a machine learning model based on
real-world data. The model estimation is used as a test function.
We propose a more principled approach using simulation instead of estimation.
Thus, relevant and varied test functions
are created which represent the behavior of real-world fitness landscapes.
Importantly, estimation can lead to excessively smooth test functions
while simulation may avoid this pitfall. Moreover, the simulation
can be conditioned by the data, so that the simulation reproduces the training data
but features diverse behavior in unobserved regions of the search space.
The proposed test function generator is illustrated with an intuitive, one-dimensional
example. To demonstrate the utility of this approach it
is applied to a protein sequence optimization problem.
This application demonstrates the advantages as well as practical limits of simulation-based
test functions.
Verunreinigungen im Wassernetz können weite Teile der Bevölkerung unmittelbar gefährden. Gefahrenpotenziale bestehen dabei nicht nur durch mögliche kriminelle Handlungen und terroristische Anschläge. Auch Betriebsstörungen, Systemfehler und Naturkatastrophen können zu Verunreinigungen führen.
Social learning enables multiple robots to share learned experiences while completing a task. The literature offers examples where robots trained with social learning reach a higher performance compared to their individual learning counterparts. No explanation has been advanced for that observation. In this research, we present experimental results suggesting that a lack of tuning of the parameters in social learning experiments could be the cause. In other words: the better the parameter settings are tuned, the less social learning can improve the system performance.
Surrogate-based optimization relies on so-called infill criteria (acquisition functions) to decide which point to evaluate next. When Kriging is used as the surrogate model of choice (also called Bayesian optimization), one of the most frequently chosen criteria is expected improvement. We argue that the popularity of expected improvement largely relies on its theoretical properties rather than empirically validated performance. Few results from the literature show evidence, that under certain conditions, expected improvement may perform worse than something as simple as the predicted value of the surrogate model. We benchmark both infill criteria in an extensive empirical study on the ‘BBOB’ function set. This investigation includes a detailed study of the impact of problem dimensionality on algorithm performance. The results support the hypothesis that exploration loses importance with increasing problem dimensionality. A statistical analysis reveals that the purely exploitative search with the predicted value criterion performs better on most problems of five or higher dimensions. Possible reasons for these results are discussed. In addition, we give an in-depth guide for choosing the infill criteria based on prior knowledge about the problem at hand, its dimensionality, and the available budget.
Real-world problems such as computational fluid dynamics simulations and finite element analyses are computationally expensive. A standard approach to mitigating the high computational expense is Surrogate-Based Optimization (SBO). Yet, due to the high-dimensionality of many simulation problems, SBO is not directly applicable or not efficient. Reducing the dimensionality of the search space is one method to overcome this limitation. In addition to the applicability of SBO, dimensionality reduction enables easier data handling and improved data and model interpretability. Regularization is considered as one state-of-the-art technique for dimensionality reduction. We propose a hybridization approach called Regularized-Surrogate-Optimization (RSO) aimed at overcoming difficulties related to high-dimensionality. It couples standard Kriging-based SBO with regularization techniques. The employed regularization methods are based on three adaptations of the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO). In addition, tree-based methods are analyzed as an alternative variable selection method. An extensive study is performed on a set of artificial test functions and two real-world applications: the electrostatic precipitator problem and a multilayered composite design problem. Experiments reveal that RSO requires significantly less time than standard SBO to obtain comparable results. The pros and cons of the RSO approach are discussed, and recommendations for practitioners are presented.
Many black-box optimization problems rely on simulations to evaluate the quality of candidate solutions. These evaluations can be computationally expensive and very time-consuming. We present and approach to mitigate this problem by taking into consideration two factors: The number of evaluations and the execution time. We aim to keep the number of evaluations low by using Bayesian optimization (BO) – known to be sample efficient– and to reduce wall-clock times by executing parallel evaluations. Four parallelization methods using BO as optimizer are compared against the inherently parallel CMA-ES. Each method is evaluated on all the 24 objective functions of the Black-Box-Optimization-Benchmarking test suite in their 20-dimensional versions. The results show that parallelized BO outperforms the state-of-the-art CMA-ES on most of the test functions, also on higher dimensions.
An important class of black-box optimization problems relies on using simulations to assess the quality of a given candidate solution. Solving such problems can be computationally expensive because each simulation is very time-consuming. We present an approach to mitigate this problem by distinguishing two factors of computational cost: the number of trials and the time needed to execute the trials. Our approach tries to keep down the number of trials by using Bayesian optimization (BO) –known to be sample efficient– and reducing wall-clock times by parallel execution of trials. We compare the performance of four parallelization methods and two model-free alternatives. Each method is evaluated on all 24 objective functions of the Black-Box-Optimization- Benchmarking (BBOB) test suite in their five, ten, and 20-dimensional versions. Additionally, their performance is investigated on six test cases in robot learning. The results show that parallelized BO outperforms the state-of-the-art CMA-ES on the BBOB test functions, especially for higher dimensions. On the robot learning tasks, the differences are less clear, but the data do support parallelized BO as the ‘best guess’, winning on some cases and never losing.
Sensor placement for contaminant detection in water distribution systems (WDS) has become a topic of great interest aiming to secure a population's water supply. Several approaches can be found in the literature with differences ranging from the objective selected to optimize to the methods implemented to solve the optimization problem. In this work we aim to give an overview of the current work in sensor placement with focus on contaminant detection for WDS. We present some of the objectives for which the sensor placement problem is defined along with common optimization algorithms and Toolkits available to help with algorithm testing and comparison.
Drinking water supply and distribution systems are critical infrastructure that has to be well maintained for the safety of the public. One important tool in the maintenance of water distribution systems (WDS) is flushing. Flushing is a process carried out in a periodic fashion to clean sediments and other contaminants in the water pipes. Given the different topographies, water composition and supply demand between WDS no single flushing strategy is suitable for all of them. In this report a non-exhaustive overview of optimization methods for flushing in WDS is given. Implementation of optimization methods for the flushing procedure and the flushing planing are presented. Suggestions are given as a possible option to optimise existing flushing planing frameworks.
Die steigende Komplexität der Produktionssysteme, insbesondere im Maschinenbau, führt zu einer Belastung für Automatisierer und Anlagenbauer. Um dieser Belastung entgegenzuwirken, bietet Industrie 4.0 mit Cyber-physischen Systemen und intelligenten Automatisierungssystemen eine Lösung. Dabei wird menschliches Expertenwissen in die Automatisierung verlagert, indem Ziele deklarativ formuliert werden, anstatt prozedurale Handlungsabläufe zu beschreiben. Dieser Ansatz ermöglicht es intelligenten Systemen, ausreichenden Handlungsspielraum zu haben und den menschlichen Aufwand bei der Optimierung, Inbetriebnahme und Anlagenumbau zu reduzieren. Um intelligente Automation umzusetzen, werden neue Automatisierungstechniken und Software-Services benötigt, die verschiedene Methoden wie maschinelles Lernen, Condition-Monitoring und Diagnose-Algorithmen sowie Optimierungsverfahren nutzen. Derzeit werden diese Services unabhängig voneinander implementiert und die Schnittstellen sind oft proprietär, was den Austausch von Daten, Modellen und Ergebnissen erschwert. Dennoch strebt Industrie 4.0 die Zusammenarbeit von Geräten und Komponenten unterschiedlicher Hersteller an. Als ein Lösungsansatz wurde in diesem Projekt eine kognitive Referenzarchitektur entwickelt, welche die genannten Punkte adressiert.
Die Arbeit beschreibt die Entwicklung und Verbreitung künstlicher Intelligenz (KI) und die damit verbundenen Herausforderungen und Chancen. Es wird hervorgehoben, dass trotz des offensichtlichen Nutzens von KI, Bedenken hinsichtlich unerwünschter Nebenwirkungen durch fehlerhafte oder missbräuchliche Anwendungen bestehen. Um diese Herausforderungen zu bewältigen, wird ein Ansatz vorgeschlagen, der als “konviviale künstliche Intelligenz” bezeichnet wird. Dieser Ansatz zielt auf ein harmonisches Zusammenspiel zwischen KI und Mensch ab und betont die Notwendigkeit einer menschenzentrierten Gestaltung bei der Entwicklung und Implementierung von KI-Modellen.
Cyclone Dust Separators are devices often used to filter solid particles from flue gas. Such cyclones are supposed to filter as much solid particles from the carrying gas as possible. At the same time, they should only introduce a minimal pressure loss to the system. Hence, collection efficiency has to be maximized and pressure loss minimized. Both the collection efficiency and pressure loss are heavily influenced by the cyclones geometry. In this paper, we optimize seven geometrical parameters of an analytical cyclone model. Furthermore, noise variables are introduced to the model, representing the non-deterministic structure of the real-world problem. This is used to investigate robustness and sensitivity of solutions. Both the deterministic as well as the stochastic model are optimized with an SMS-EMOA. The SMS-EMOA is compared to a single objective optimization algorithm. For the harder, stochastic optimization problem, a surrogate-model-supported SMS-EMOA is compared against the model-free SMS-EMOA. The model supported approach yields better solutions with the same run-time budget.
EventDetectR: An efficient Event Detection System (EDS) capable of detecting unexpected water quality conditions. This approach uses multiple algorithms to model the relationship between various multivariate water quality signals. Then the residuals of the models were utilized in constructing the event detection algorithm, which provides a continuous measure of the probability of an event at every time step. The proposed framework was tested for water contamination events with industrial data from automated water quality sensors. The results showed that the framework is reliable with better performance and is highly suitable for event detection.