Decision Oriented Bayesian Design of Experiments

Farminder Anand1,  Jay Lee2,  Matthew Realff3
1Graduate Student, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology, 3Associate Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology


Abstract

Experimental design is a fundamental problem in science and engineering. Traditional 'Design of Experiment' (DOE) approaches focus on minimization of variance. In this work, we propose a new "decision-oriented" DOE approach, which takes into account how the generated data, and subsequently the developed model, will be used in decision making. By doing so, the variance will be distributed in a manner such that its impact on the targeted decision making will be minimal. Our results show that the new decision-oriented experiment design approach significantly outperforms the standard D-optimal design approach. The new design method should be a valuable tool when experiments are conducted for the purpose of making R&D decisions.