A GAN-based dimensionality reduction technique for aerodynamic shape optimization

Abstract Aerodynamic shape optimization (ASO) based on computational fluid dynamics simulations is extremely computationally demanding because a search needs to be performed in a high-dimensional design space. One solution to this problem is to reduce the dimensionality of the design space for aircraft optimization. Hence, in this study, a dimensionality reduction technique is designed based on a generative adversarial network (GAN) to facilitate ASO. The novel GAN model is developed by combining the GAN with airfoil curve parameterization and can directly produce realistic and highly accurate airfoil curves from input data of aerodynamic shapes. In addition, the respective interpretable characteristic airfoil variables can be obtained by extracting latent codes with physical meaning, while reducing the dimensionality of the airfoil design space. The results of simulation experiments show that the proposed technique can significantly improve the optimization convergence rate of the ASO process.