Difference mapping method using least square support vector regression for variable-fidelity metamodelling

Engineering design, especially for complex engineering systems, is usually a time-consuming process involving computation-intensive computer-based simulation and analysis methods. A difference mapping method using least square support vector regression is developed in this work, as a special metamodelling methodology that includes variable-fidelity data, to replace the computationally expensive computer codes. A general difference mapping framework is proposed where a surrogate base is first created, then the approximation is gained by a mapping the difference between the base and the real high-fidelity response surface. The least square support vector regression is adopted to accomplish the mapping. Two different sampling strategies, nested and non-nested design of experiments, are conducted to explore their respective effects on modelling accuracy. Different sample sizes and three approximation performance measures of accuracy are considered.