Optimal experimental design for calibrating a model for the response of a Hall thruster plume to facility pressure

An Optimal Experimental Design (OED) algorithm is implemented on a reduced fidelity model for the response of the plume of a Hall effect thruster to background neutral pressure with the goal of increasing the efficiency of calibrating the model against experimental data. The investigated plume model is based on a semi-analytical formulation that accounts for collisional effects. A previously published dataset from the SPT-100 Hall thruster of current density and ion energy as a function of position and background pressure is employed as a test case. Both myopic and myopic with batches OED methods are explored for identifying subsets of measurements from the dataset for rapid model calibration. It is found that both methods are able to achieve the same confidence in model parameter inference as a calibration performed with the full dataset but with approximately 60% of the measurements. This result is discussed in the context of best practices for designing future experimental campaigns to evaluate facility effects in Hall thrusters.