Multi-fidelity error estimation accelerates greedy model reduction of complex dynamical systems

Abstract: Model order reduction usually consists of two stages: the offline stage and the online stage. The offline stage is the expensive part that sometimes takes hours till the final reduced-order model is derived, especially when the original model is very large or complex. Once the reduced-order model is obtained, the online stage of querying the reduced-order model for simulation is very fast and often real-time capable. This work concerns a strategy to significantly speed up the offline stage of model order reduction for large and complex systems. In particular, it is successful in accelerating the greedy algorithm that is often used in the offline stage for reduced-order model construction. We propose multi-fidelity error estimators and replace the high-fidelity error estimator in the greedy algorithm. Consequently, the computational complexity at each iteration of the greedy algorithm is reduced and the algorithm converges more than 3 times faster without incurring noticeable accuracy loss.