about
Direct shape optimization through deep reinforcement learning (arxiv.org)
3 points by sel1 on Aug 29, 2019 | hide | past | pdf | discuss on HN

In plain words: A neural network learns by trial and error, earning points for good designs, to draw shapes from scratch instead of tweaking a starting shape. Testing it on airflow problems, it found optimal shapes on its own within a set time limit.

Abstract

Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) has recently spread into a range of domains within physics and engineering, with multiple remarkable achievements. Still, much remains to be explored before the capabilities of these methods are well understood. In this paper, we present the first application of DRL to direct shape optimization. We show that, given adequate reward, an artificial neural network trained through DRL is able to generate optimal shapes on its own, without any prior knowledge and in a constrained time. While we choose here to apply this methodology to aerodynamics, the optimization process itself is agnostic to details of the use case, and thus our work paves the way to new generic shape optimization strategies both in fluid mechanics, and more generally in any domain where a relevant reward function can be defined.

Jonathan Viquerat, Jean Rabault, Alexander Kuhnle, Hassan Ghraieb, Aurélien Larcher, Elie Hachem
arXiv:1908.09885 · cs.CE · submitted Aug 23, 2019 · updated Dec 19, 2020
abstract · pdf · html

add comment on HN