The concept of Imaginary Machines for design and Setting of Optimization Problems: Application to a synchronous generator

This paper suggests that “Setting Optimization Problem” is an important bottleneck in the practical use of optimization for design of electromagnetic devices. “Setting Optimization Problem” means in particular finding the “right formulation of the constraints” on the inputs and outputs of the optimization problem, and what is the right formulation of the objective functions. This problematic can certainly become a research topic in which concepts, methodologies and tools should be developed. As an example of this, this paper proposes a concept called the Imaginary Pareto Front (IPF) using itself the concept of Imaginary Machines (IM). We will show how it that can be used in order to check very quickly the constraints formulation of an optimization problem of electromagnetic devices, based on a continuous model in which some parameters are discrete. This will be illustrated on the design of a round-rotor synchronous generator.