This book presents a novel framework, known as Active Robust Optimization, which provides the tools for evaluating, comparing and optimizing changeable products. Since any product that can change its configuration during normal operation may be considered a "changeable product," the framework is widely applicable. Further, the methodology enables designers to use adaptability to deal with uncertainties and so avoid over-conservative designs. Offering a comprehensive overview of the framework, including its unique features, such as its ability to optimally respond to uncertain situations, the book also defines a new class of optimization problem and examines the effects of changes in various parameters on their solution. Lastly, it discusses innovative approaches for solving the problem and demonstrates these with two examples from different fields in engineering design: optimization of an optical table and optimization of a gearbox.

This book presents a novel framework, known as Active Robust Optimization, which provides the tools for evaluating, comparing and optimizing changeable products. Since any product that can change its configuration during normal operation may be considered a “changeable product,” the framework is widely applicable. Further, the methodology enables designers to use adaptability to deal with uncertainties and so avoid over-conservative designs. Offering a comprehensive overview of the framework, including its unique features, such as its ability to optimally respond to uncertain situations, the book also defines a new class of optimization problem and examines the effects of changes in various parameters on their solution. Lastly, it discusses innovative approaches for solving the problem and demonstrates these ‎with two examples from different fields in engineering design: optimization of an optical table and optimization of a gearbox.

Zusammenfassung: This book develops robust design and assessment of product and production from viewpoint of system theory, which is quantized with the introduction of brand new concept of preferable probability and its assessment. It aims to provide a new idea and novel way to robust design and assessment of product and production and relevant problems. Robust design and assessment of product and production is attractive to both customer and producer since the stability and insensitivity of a product's quality to uncontrollable factors reflect its value. Taguchi method has been used to conduct robust design and assessment of product and production for half a century, but its rationality is criticized by statisticians due to its casting of both mean value of a response and its dispersion into one index, which doesn't characterize the issue of simultaneous robust design of above two independent responses sufficiently, so an appropriate approach is needed. The preference or role of a response in the evaluation is indicated by using preferable probability as the unique index. Thus, the rational approach for robust design and assessment of product and production is formulated by means of probabilistic multi-objective optimization, which reveals the simultaneous robust designs of both mean value of a response and its dispersion in manner of joint probability. Besides, defuzzification and fuzzification measurements are involved as preliminary approaches for robust assessment, the latter provides miraculous treatment for the 'target the best' case flexibly

Robust optimization is still a relatively new approach to optimization problems affected by uncertainty, but it has already proved so useful in real applications that it is difficult to tackle such problems today without considering this powerful methodology. Written by the principal developers of robust optimization, and describing the main achievements of a decade of research, this is the first book to provide a comprehensive and up-to-date account of the subject. Robust optimization is designed to meet some major challenges associated with uncertainty-affected optimization problems: to operate under lack of full information on the nature of uncertainty; to model the problem in a form that can be solved efficiently; and to provide guarantees about the performance of the solution. The book starts with a relatively simple treatment of uncertain linear programming, proceeding with a deep analysis of the interconnections between the construction of appropriate uncertainty sets and the classical chance constraints (probabilistic) approach. It then develops the robust optimization theory for uncertain conic quadratic and semidefinite optimization problems and dynamic (multistage) problems. The theory is supported by numerous examples and computational illustrations. An essential book for anyone working on optimization and decision making under uncertainty, Robust Optimization also makes an ideal graduate textbook on the subject.

Robust Optimization; Uncertainties; Scenarios; Multi-objective Optimization; Set Optimization; Scalarization; Vectorization; Optimality Conditions