A new multiobjective evolutionary algorithm

The Pareto-based approaches have shown some success in designing multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MEAs). Their methods of fitness assignment are mainly from the information of dominated and nondominated individuals. On the top of the hierarchy of MEAs, the strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm (SPEA) has been elaborately designed with this principle in mind. In this paper, we propose a (μ+λ) multiobjective evolutionary algorithm ((μ+λ) MEA), which discards the dominated individuals in each generation. The comparisons of the experimental results demonstrate that the (μ+λ) MEA outperforms SPEA on five benchmark functions with less computational efforts.     

A multiobjective evolutionary algorithm for approximating the efficient set

In this article, a new framework for evolutionary algorithms for approximating the efficient set of a multiobjective optimization (MOO) problem with continuous variables is presented. The algorithm is based on populations of variable size and exploits new elite preserving rules for selecting alternatives generated by mutation and recombination. Together with additional assumptions on the considered MOO problem and further specifications on the algorithm, theoretical results on the approximation quality such as convergence in probability and almost sure convergence are derived.     

GPU implementation of a multiobjective search algorithm

In this paper we observe the possibility to accelerate a search algorithm for multiobjective optimization problems with help of a graphics processing unit. Besides an implementation we present test results for it and the conclusions that can be drawn from these results.     

On the convergence of multiobjective evolutionary algorithms

We consider the usage of evolutionary algorithms for multiobjective programming (MOP), i.e. for decision problems with alternatives taken from a real-valued vector space and evaluated according to a vector-valued objective function. Selection mechanisms, possibilities of temporary fitness deterioration, and problems of unreachable alternatives for such multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) are studied. Theoretical properties of MOEAs such as stochastic convergence with probability 1 are analyzed.     

Evacuation planning using multiobjective evolutionary optimization approach

In an emergency situation, evacuation is conducted in order to displace people from a dangerous place to a safer place, and it usually needs to be done in a hurry. It is necessary to prepare evacuation plans in order to have a good response in an emergency situation. A central challenge in developing an evacuation plan is in determining the distribution of evacuees into the safe areas, that is, deciding where and from which road each evacuee should go. To achieve this aim, several objective functions should be brought into consideration and need to be satisfied simultaneously, though these objective functions may often conflict with each other.     

Interactive algorithm for multiobjective optimization

The definition of a class of matrices in Ref. 1 is modified.     

Interactive algorithm for multiobjective optimization

A man-machine interactive algorithm is given for solving multiobjective optimization problems involving one decision maker. The algorithm, a modification of the Frank-Wolfe steepest ascent method, gives at each iteration a significant freedom and ease for the decision-maker's self-expression, and requires a minimal information on his local estimate of the steepest-ascent direction. The convergence of the iterative algorithm is proved under natural assumptions on the convergence and stability of the basic Frank-Wolfe algorithm.     

A software framework based on a conceptual unified model for evolutionary multiobjective optimization: ParadisEO-MOEO

This paper presents a general-purpose software framework dedicated to the design and the implementation of evolutionary multiobjective optimization techniques: ParadisEO-MOEO. A concise overview of evolutionary algorithms for multiobjective optimization is given. A substantial number of methods has been proposed so far, and an attempt of conceptually unifying existing approaches is presented here. Based on a fine-grained decomposition and following the main issues of fitness assignment, diversity preservation and elitism, a conceptual model is proposed and is validated by regarding a number of state-of-the-art algorithms as simple variants of the same structure. This model is then incorporated into the ParadisEO-MOEO software framework. This framework has proven its validity and high flexibility by enabling the resolution of many academic, real-world and hard multiobjective optimization problems.     

A multiobjective immune algorithm based on a multiple-affinity model

This paper presents a new multiobjective immune algorithm based on a multiple-affinity model inspired by immune system (MAM-MOIA). The multiple-affinity model builds the relationship model among main entities and concepts in multiobjective problems (MOPs) and multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs), including feasible solution, variable space, objective space, Pareto-optimal set, ranking and crowding distance. In the model, immune operators including clonal proliferation, hypermutation and immune suppression are designed to proliferate superior antibodies and suppress the inferiors. MAM-MOIA is compared with NSGA-II, SPEA2 and NNIA in solving the ZDT and DTLZ standard test problems. The experimental study based on three performance metrics including coverage of two sets, convergence and spacing proves that MAM-MOIA is effective for solving MOPs.     

Searching for multiobjective preventive maintenance schedules: Combining preferences with evolutionary algorithms

Heavy industry maintenance facilities at aircraft service centers or railroad yards must contend with scheduling preventive maintenance tasks to ensure critical equipment remains available. The workforce that performs these tasks are often high-paid, which means the task scheduling should minimize worker idle time. Idle time can always be minimized by reducing the workforce. However, all preventive maintenance tasks should be completed as quickly as possible to make equipment available. This means the completion time should be also minimized. Unfortunately, a small workforce cannot complete many maintenance tasks per hour. Hence, there is a tradeoff: should the workforce be small to reduce idle time or should it be large so more maintenance can be performed each hour? A cost effective schedule should strike some balance between a minimum schedule and a minimum size workforce.     

FEMOEA: a fast and efficient multi-objective evolutionary algorithm

A multi-objective evolutionary algorithm which can be applied to many nonlinear multi-objective optimization problems is proposed. Its aim is to quickly obtain a fixed size Pareto-front approximation. It adapts ideas from different multi-objective evolutionary algorithms, but also incorporates new devices. In particular, the search in the feasible region is carried out on promising areas (hyperspheres) determined by a radius value, which decreases as the optimization procedure evolves. This mechanism helps to maintain a balance between exploration and exploitation of the search space. Additionally, a new local search method which accelerates the convergence of the population towards the Pareto-front, has been incorporated. It is an extension of the local optimizer SASS and improves a given solution along a search direction (no gradient information is used). Finally, a termination criterion has also been proposed, which stops the algorithm if the distances between the Pareto-front approximations provided by the algorithm in three consecutive iterations are smaller than a given tolerance. To know how far two of those sets are from each other, a modification of the well-known Hausdorff distance is proposed. In order to analyze the algorithm performance, it has been compared to the reference algorithms NSGA-II and SPEA2 and the state-of-the-art algorithms MOEA/D and SMS-EMOA. Several quality indicators have been considered, namely, hypervolume, average distance, additive epsilon indicator, spread and spacing. According to the computational tests performed, the new algorithm, named FEMOEA, outperforms the other algorithms.     

Bifurcation and adaptation in evolutionary interactive multiobjective linear programming

This paper shows how a formal modeling framework, Evolutionary Systems Design (ESD), for evolutionary problem definition and solution, can be used for problem adaptation and restructuring in optimization problems, as developed for Multiobjective Linear Programming (MOLP). Restructuring through a heuristic controls/goals/values referral process and adaptation are discussed for interactive MOLP, and illustrated by a numerical example.     

A new multiobjective simulated annealing algorithm

A new multiobjective simulated annealing algorithm for continuous optimization problems is presented. The algorithm has an adaptive cooling schedule and uses a population of fitness functions to accurately generate the Pareto front. Whenever an improvement with a fitness function is encountered, the trial point is accepted, and the temperature parameters associated with the improving fitness functions are cooled. Beside well known linear fitness functions, special elliptic and ellipsoidal fitness functions, suitable for the generation on non-convex fronts, are presented. The effectiveness of the algorithm is shown through five test problems. The parametric study presented shows that more fitness functions as well as more iteration gives more non-dominated points closer to the actual front. The study also compares the linear and elliptic fitness functions. The success of the algorithm is also demonstrated by comparing the quality metrics obtained to those obtained for a well-known evolutionary multiobjective algorithm.     

A hybrid immune multiobjective optimization algorithm

In this paper, we develop a hybrid immune multiobjective optimization algorithm (HIMO) based on clonal selection principle. In HIMO, a hybrid mutation operator is proposed with the combination of Gaussian and polynomial mutations (GP-HM operator). The GP-HM operator adopts an adaptive switching parameter to control the mutation process, which uses relative large steps in high probability for boundary individuals and less-crowded individuals. With the generation running, the probability to perform relative large steps is reduced gradually. By this means, the exploratory capabilities are enhanced by keeping a desirable balance between global search and local search, so as to accelerate the convergence speed to the true Pareto-optimal front in the global space with many local Pareto-optimal fronts. When comparing HIMO with various state-of-the-art multiobjective optimization algorithms developed recently, simulation results show that HIMO performs better evidently.     

A predictive gradient strategy for multiobjective evolutionary algorithms in a fast changing environment

An essential feature of a dynamic multiobjective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) is to converge quickly to the Pareto-optimal Set before it changes. In cases where the behavior of the dynamic problem follows a certain trend, convergence can be accelerated by anticipating the characteristics of future changes in the problem. A prediction model is usually used to exploit past information and estimate the location of the new Pareto-optimal Set. In this work, we propose the novel approach of tracking and predicting the changes in the location of the Pareto Set in order to minimize the effects of a landscape change. The predicted direction and magnitude of the next change, known as the predictive gradient, is estimated based on the history of previously discovered solutions using a weighted average approach. Solutions updated with the predictive gradient will remain in the vicinity of the new Pareto-optimal Set and help the rest of the population to converge. The prediction strategy is simple to implement, making it suitable for fast-changing problems. In addition, a new memory technique is introduced to exploit any periodicity in the dynamic problem. The memory technique selects only the more promising stored solutions for retrieval in order to reduce the number of evaluations used. Both techniques are incorporated into a variant of the multi-objective evolutionary gradient search (MO-EGS) and two other MOEAs for dynamic optimization and results indicate that they are effective at improving performance on several dynamic multiobjective test problems.     

Comparative analysis of multiobjective evolutionary algorithms for random and correlated instances of multiobjective d-dimensional knapsack problems

This study analyzes multiobjective d-dimensional knapsack problems (MOd-KP) within a comparative analysis of three multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs): the ε-nondominated sorted genetic algorithm II (ε-NSGAII), the strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm 2 (SPEA2) and the ε-nondominated hierarchical Bayesian optimization algorithm (ε-hBOA). This study contributes new insights into the challenges posed by correlated instances of the MOd-KP that better capture the decision interdependencies often present in real world applications. A statistical performance analysis of the algorithms uses the unary ε-indicator, the hypervolume indicator and success rate plots to demonstrate their relative effectiveness, efficiency, and reliability for the MOd-KP instances analyzed. Our results indicate that the ε-hBOA achieves superior performance relative to ε-NSGAII and SPEA2 with increasing number of objectives, number of decisions, and correlative linkages between the two. Performance of the ε-hBOA suggests that probabilistic model building evolutionary algorithms have significant promise for expanding the size and scope of challenging multiobjective problems that can be explored.     

Fuzzy classifier identification using decision tree and multiobjective evolutionary algorithms

This paper presents a hybrid method for identification of Pareto-optimal fuzzy classifiers (FCs). In contrast to many existing methods, the initial population for multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) is neither created randomly nor a priori knowledge is required. Instead, it is created by the proposed two-step initialization method. First, a decision tree (DT) created by C4.5 algorithm is transformed into an FC. Therefore, relevant variables are selected and initial partition of input space is performed. Then, the rest of the population is created by randomly replacing some parameters of the initial FC, such that, the initial population is widely spread. That improves the convergence of MOEAs into the correct Pareto front. The initial population is optimized by NSGA-II algorithm and a set of Pareto-optimal FCs representing the trade-off between accuracy and interpretability is obtained. The method does not require any a priori knowledge of the number of fuzzy sets, distribution of fuzzy sets or the number of relevant variables. They are all determined by it. Performance of the obtained FCs is validated by six benchmark data sets from the literature. The obtained results are compared to a recently published paper [H. Ishibuchi, Y. Nojima, Analysis of interpretability-accuracy tradeoff of fuzzy systems by multiobjective fuzzy genetics-based machine learning, International Journal of Approximate Reasoning 44 (1) (2007) 4–31] and the benefits of our method are clearly shown.     

A novel elitist multiobjective optimization algorithm: Multiobjective extremal optimization

Recently, a general-purpose local-search heuristic method called extremal optimization (EO) has been successfully applied to some NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. This paper presents an investigation on EO with its application in numerical multiobjective optimization and proposes a new novel elitist (1 + λ) multiobjective algorithm, called multiobjective extremal optimization (MOEO). In order to extend EO to solve the multiobjective optimization problems, the Pareto dominance strategy is introduced to the fitness assignment of the proposed approach. We also present a new hybrid mutation operator that enhances the exploratory capabilities of our algorithm. The proposed approach is validated using five popular benchmark functions. The simulation results indicate that the proposed approach is highly competitive with the state-of-the-art multiobjective evolutionary algorithms. Thus MOEO can be considered a good alternative to solve numerical multiobjective optimization problems.     

A weighting subgradient algorithm for multiobjective optimization

We propose a weighting subgradient algorithm for solving multiobjective minimization problems on a nonempty closed convex subset of an Euclidean space. This method combines weighting technique and the classical projected subgradient method, using a divergent series steplength rule. Under the assumption of convexity, we show that the sequence generated by this method converges to a Pareto optimal point of the problem. Some numerical results are presented.