Application of Sensitivity Analysis for an Improved Representation in Evolutionary Design Optimization

The choice of the representation in evolutionary design optimization defines the flexibility and constraints of the search process. Finding an adequate representation is a pre-requisite for the success of an optimization but requires extensive knowledge about the design at hand. Based on the results of an automotive part design optimization, the authors provide evidence that an adaptation of the representation based on sensitivity information leads to new outperforming designs. for retrieving reliable sensitivity estimates a robust variant of the mutual information has been introduced. the robust sensitivity measure provides valuable information for the setup of an improved representation.