Scaling Bayesian Optimization for High-Dimensional and Large-Scale Constrained Spaces

Design optimization offers the potential to develop lightweight aircraft structures with reduced environmental impact. Due to the high number of design variables and constraints, these challenges are typically addressed using gradient-based optimization methods to maintain efficiency, however overlooking the global design space. Moreover, gradients are frequently unavailable. Bayesian optimization presents a promising gradient-free alternative, enabling sample-efficient global optimization through probabilistic surrogate models. Although Bayesian optimization has shown its effectiveness for problems with a small number of design variables, it struggles to scale to high-dimensional problems, particularly when incorporating large-scale constraints. This challenge is especially pronounced in aeroelastic tailoring, where directional stiffness properties are integrated into the structural design to manage aeroelastic deformations and enhance both aerodynamic and structural performance. Ensuring the safe operation of the system requires simultaneously addressing constraints from various analysis disciplines, making global design space exploration even more complex. This study seeks to address this issue by employing high-dimensional Bayesian optimization combined with dimensionality reduction to tackle the optimization challenges in aeroelastic tailoring. The proposed approach is validated through experiments on a well-known benchmark case, as well as its application to the aeroelastic tailoring problem, demonstrating the feasibility of Bayesian optimization for high-dimensional problems with large-scale constraints.