Editor’s Pick: Automated Numerical Search Speeds Design Optimization

By Anthony J. Lockwood

Dear Desktop Engineering Reader:

I don’t believe that I’ve ever seen 60 Minutes exposing the truth about numerical search algorithms. And I’m certain that when some of you tried to get your CFO to pay heed to them, you got that eyes-glazed over, I’ll look into it kiss-off engineers know so well. But engineers in all sorts of manufacturing industries apply numerical search algorithms to linear and nonlinear acoustic, electrical, electromagnetic, fluid, structural, thermal, and multidisciplinary problems every day. And too many are wasting an incredible amount of time and compute resources wrestling with their search algorithms, jacking up costs and squandering time to market. HEEDS Professional from Red Cedar Technology optimizes your design optimization workflow by harnessing numerical search algorithms.

HEEDS Professional works with data from your CAE and design applications and enables you to produce optimized designs quickly. One of the keys to HEEDS is its SHERPA technology, and there are two keys to SHERPA.

One, SHERPA is a hybrid search algorithm that combines its own strategies with other known methods — genetic algorithms, e.g. — then leverages them all automatically and simultaneously to explore your design space and optimize the design. It’s smart about that: SHERPA squeezes out strategies with less optimal effectivity for the job at hand and modifies parameters automatically as it optimizes. As you might have guessed, this phalanx of search algorithms brought to bear on a problem requires fewer iterations to converge on the optimal design because it eliminates the inefficiencies inherent in running one method over and over. It also disposes of that fateful moment when you realize, usually after a few hundred iterations, that you chose the wrong algorithm for the job that’s been running all day.

The second key relates to that last point: You do not have to be an optimization technology maven to put SHERPA to use. (Yes, HEEDS gives you the option of manually selecting the method you want.) With HEEDS, you set up a design optimization through a simple process. It lets you define your problem broadly with real data and more variables than is typically the case. Then, SHERPA figures out the right mix of algorithms and tuning parameters to use to optimize the design.

What this all means for you is that HEEDS gets you to your optimized design quickly and efficiently. Which means for your CFO that HEEDS Professional increases your productivity, reduces wasted time and money, gets products to market faster, and frees up computer resources for additional productive work. And it works with you existing CAE and design applications, so that’s not an issue.

There’s a ton more to HEEDS Professional than I hit on here. But this is a good one. Go to today’s Pick of the Week write-up to learn about the updates in version 5.3. You’ll find a link to a white paper explaining SHERPA better than I did as well as links to evaluation units and more details.

Thanks, pal. — Lockwood

Anthony J. Lockwood
Editor at Large, Desktop Engineering Magazine

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