Decoder Decomposition for the Analysis of the Latent Space of Nonlinear Autoencoders With Wind-Tunnel Experimental Data

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Main Authors: Mo, Yaxin, Traverso, Tullio, Magri, Luca
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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_version_ 1866917864494071808
author Mo, Yaxin
Traverso, Tullio
Magri, Luca
author_facet Mo, Yaxin
Traverso, Tullio
Magri, Luca
contents Turbulent flows are chaotic and multi-scale dynamical systems, which have large numbers of degrees of freedom. Turbulent flows, however, can be modelled with a smaller number of degrees of freedom when using the appropriate coordinate system, which is the goal of dimensionality reduction via nonlinear autoencoders. Autoencoders are expressive tools, but they are difficult to interpret. The goal of this paper is to propose a method to aid the interpretability of autoencoders. This is the decoder decomposition. First, we propose the decoder decomposition, which is a post-processing method to connect the latent variables to the coherent structures of flows. Second, we apply the decoder decomposition to analyse the latent space of synthetic data of a two-dimensional unsteady wake past a cylinder. We find that the dimension of latent space has a significant impact on the interpretability of autoencoders. We identify the physical and spurious latent variables. Third, we apply the decoder decomposition to the latent space of wind-tunnel experimental data of a three-dimensional turbulent wake past a bluff body. We show that the reconstruction error is a function of both the latent space dimension and the decoder size, which are correlated. Finally, we apply the decoder decomposition to rank and select latent variables based on the coherent structures that they represent. This is useful to filter unwanted or spurious latent variables, or to pinpoint specific coherent structures of interest. The ability to rank and select latent variables will help users design and interpret nonlinear autoencoders.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2404_19660
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Decoder Decomposition for the Analysis of the Latent Space of Nonlinear Autoencoders With Wind-Tunnel Experimental Data
Mo, Yaxin
Traverso, Tullio
Magri, Luca
Machine Learning
Fluid Dynamics
Turbulent flows are chaotic and multi-scale dynamical systems, which have large numbers of degrees of freedom. Turbulent flows, however, can be modelled with a smaller number of degrees of freedom when using the appropriate coordinate system, which is the goal of dimensionality reduction via nonlinear autoencoders. Autoencoders are expressive tools, but they are difficult to interpret. The goal of this paper is to propose a method to aid the interpretability of autoencoders. This is the decoder decomposition. First, we propose the decoder decomposition, which is a post-processing method to connect the latent variables to the coherent structures of flows. Second, we apply the decoder decomposition to analyse the latent space of synthetic data of a two-dimensional unsteady wake past a cylinder. We find that the dimension of latent space has a significant impact on the interpretability of autoencoders. We identify the physical and spurious latent variables. Third, we apply the decoder decomposition to the latent space of wind-tunnel experimental data of a three-dimensional turbulent wake past a bluff body. We show that the reconstruction error is a function of both the latent space dimension and the decoder size, which are correlated. Finally, we apply the decoder decomposition to rank and select latent variables based on the coherent structures that they represent. This is useful to filter unwanted or spurious latent variables, or to pinpoint specific coherent structures of interest. The ability to rank and select latent variables will help users design and interpret nonlinear autoencoders.
title Decoder Decomposition for the Analysis of the Latent Space of Nonlinear Autoencoders With Wind-Tunnel Experimental Data
topic Machine Learning
Fluid Dynamics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2404.19660