2D Decision-Making for Multi-Criteria Design Optimization

The high dimensionality encountered in engineering design optimization due to large numbers of performance criteria and specifications leads to cumbersome and sometimes unachievable tradeoff analyses. To facilitate those analyses and enhance decision-making and design selection, we propose to decompose the original problem by considering only pairs of criteria at a time, thereby making tradeoff evaluation the simplest possible. For the final design integration, we develop a novel coordination mechanism that guarantees that the selected design is also preferred for the original problem. The solution of an overall large-scale problem is therefore reduced to solving a family of bi-criteria subproblems and allows designers to effectively use decision-making in merely two dimensions for multi-criteria design optimization.