Sobol' Matrices For Multi-Output Models With Quantified Uncertainty

Abstract

Variance based global sensitivity analysis measures the relevance of inputs to a single output using Sobol' indices. This paper extends the definition in a natural way to multiple outputs, directly measuring the relevance of inputs to the linkages between outputs in a correlation-like matrix of indices. The usual Sobol' indices constitute the diagonal of this matrix. Existence, uniqueness and uncertainty quantification are established by developing the indices from a putative multi-output model with quantified uncertainty. Sobol' matrices and their standard errors are related to the moments of the multi-output model, to enable calculation. These are benchmarked numerically against test functions (with added noise) whose Sobol' matrices are calculated analytically.