Orthogonal Arrays: A Review

Orthogonal arrays are arguably one of the most fascinating and important statistical tools for efficient data collection. They have a simple, natural definition, desirable properties when used as fractional factorials, and a rich and beautiful mathematical theory. Their connections with combinatorics, finite fields, geometry, and error-correcting codes are profound. Orthogonal arrays have been widely used in agriculture, engineering, manufacturing, and high-technology industries for quality and productivity improvement experiments. In recent years, they have drawn rapidly growing interest from various fields such as computer experiments, integration, visualization, optimization, big data, machine learning/artificial intelligence through successful applications in those fields. We review the fundamental concepts and statistical properties and report recent developments. Discussions of recent applications and connections with various fields are presented.