Emulator technology in engineering design

Abstract

Emulator technology is the methodology that replaces simulators in engineering design by surrogate models, sometimes called meta-models. The methodology has three distinct stages: data capture, modelling and optimization. Space-filling experimental designs are used to gather information; then specialized adaptive models, derived from statistical principles, are used to emulate the system. The advantage of emulators is that they run many times faster than the simulators, which means they can be used in multi-domain environments for multi-objective optimization. This is generally not possible using the simulators themselves due to the computational burden. Emulator technology should be considered as part of the general data-capture and modelling environment within industry.