Deep Active Learning for Regression Using $\epsilon$-weighted Hybrid Query Strategy

TL;DR

This paper introduces $\\epsilon$-HQS, a novel active learning sampling method that enhances deep learning surrogates for expensive engineering simulations by focusing on high failure probability regions, improving accuracy in high-cost and high-dimensional problems.

Contribution

The paper presents the $\\epsilon$-HQS method, a new hybrid query strategy combining active learning with failure probability estimation to improve surrogate modeling efficiency.

Findings

Better surrogate accuracy compared to existing methods.

Effective in high-dimensional and costly engineering problems.

Guides sampling towards high failure probability regions.

Abstract

Designing an inexpensive approximate surrogate model that captures the salient features of an expensive high-fidelity behavior is a prevalent approach in design optimization. In recent times, Deep Learning (DL) models are being used as a promising surrogate computational model for engineering problems. However, the main challenge in creating a DL-based surrogate is to simulate/label a large number of design points, which is time-consuming for computationally costly and/or high-dimensional engineering problems. In the present work, we propose a novel sampling technique by combining the active learning (AL) method with DL. We call this method $\epsilon$-weighted hybrid query strategy ($\epsilon$-HQS) , which focuses on the evaluation of the surrogate at each learning iteration and provides an estimate of the failure probability of the surrogate in the Design Space. By reusing already collected training and test data, the learned failure probability guides the next iteration's sampling process to the region of the high probability of failure. During the empirical evaluation, better accuracy of the surrogate was observed in comparison to other methods of sample selection. We empirically evaluated this method in two different engineering design domains, finite element based static stress analysis of submarine pressure vessel(computationally costly process) and second submarine propeller design( high dimensional problem). https://github.com/vardhah/epsilon_weighted_Hybrid_Query_Strategy