Pareto Meta-Front for the Optimal Design of Reconfigurable Devices in Electromechanics

Reconfigurable devices are of paramount importance in many applications, and a method inspired by Pareto-like optimality can generate a sequence of configurations, each of which is the best trade-off between design criteria. Accordingly, an original concept of Pareto meta-front is presented: given a family of fronts depending on a variable parameter, the meta-front is defined as the curve which joins all the closest-to-utopia points. It describes the variation of the best combinations of two conflicting design criteria against a cost parameter like, for example, a material property. The case study considered in order to prove the validity of the proposed method is the optimal shape design of an interior permanent-magnet motor (IPM) that is assumed to be magnetically reconfigurable, meaning that the variable parameter indexes a set of several permanent-magnet materials, each of which is featured by its own demagnetisation curve.