Surrogate modeling with non-stationary-noise based Gaussian process regression and K-Fold ANN for systems featuring uneven sensitivity distribution

In the realm of aircraft design, there is a prevalent need for surrogate modeling techniques capable of efficiently and accurately modeling objects with high evaluation costs and uneven sensitivity distributions, such as those encountered in the nonlinear buckling of thin-walled structures and aerodynamics at transonic speeds. However, the non-stationary Gaussian Process Regression (GPR) model requires extensive hyperparameters or judicious assumptions, limiting its applications in such tasks, and the commonly used K-Fold methodology suffers from inherent instability. Addressing these issues, this paper proposes an active learning method for surrogate modeling in systems featuring uneven sensitivity distribution, integrating non-stationary-noise GPR and K-Fold Artificial Neural Network (ANN) methodology, namely NSN-GPR-KF. Instead of relying on a non-stationary kernel function, the algorithm regards noise as a non-stationary factor within a stationary GPR framework, with noise levels estimated via the K-Fold ANN methodology, allowing GPR to efficiently adapt to non-stationary systems while avoiding the aforementioned requirements for non-stationary GPR. Case validations, performed on two test functions with pronounced uneven spatial sensitivity, demonstrate that NSN-GPR-KF outperforms commonly used stationary GPR and pure K-Fold methodology. It synthesizes the exploration capabilities of GPR with the exploitation proficiency of the K-Fold methodology, achieving comparable global accuracy with reduced sample sizes—up to 26 % and 22 % less than the other two algorithms, respectively. The algorithm was successfully applied to predict the buckling load of thin-walled pipe beams, demonstrating accelerated convergence and approximately 25 % greater accuracy compared to pure K-Fold model. These results suggest that NSN-GPR-KF can serve as an efficient and precise modeling tool for engineering tasks with high evaluation costs and complex sensitivity distributions.