Efficient simulation-driven design optimization of antennas using co-kriging

We present an efficient technique for design optimization of antenna structures. Our approach exploits coarse-discretization electromagnetic (EM) simulations of the antenna of interest that are used to create its fast initial model (a surrogate) through kriging. During the design process, the predictions obtained by optimizing the surrogate are verified using high-fidelity EM simulations, and this high-fidelity data is used to enhance the surrogate through co-kriging technique that accommodates all EM simulation data into one surrogate model. The co-kriging-based optimization algorithm is simple, elegant and is capable of yielding a satisfactory design at a low cost equivalent to a few high-fidelity EM simulations of the antenna structure. To our knowledge, this is a first application of co-kriging to antenna design. An application example is provided.