A fast multi-objective evolutionary algorithm based on a tree structure

This paper proposes a fast evolutionary algorithm based on a tree structure for multi-objective optimization. The tree structure, named dominating tree (DT), is able to preserve the necessary Pareto dominance relations among individuals effectively, contains the density information implicitly, and reduces the number of comparisons among individuals significantly. The evolutionary algorithm based on dominating tree (DTEA) integrates the convergence strategy and diversity strategy into the DT and employs a DT-based eliminating strategy that realizes elitism and preserves population diversity without extra time and space costs. Numerical experiments show that DTEA is much faster than SPEA2, NSGA-II and an improved version of NSGA-II, while its solution quality is competitive with those of SPEA2 and NSGA-II.     

An improved evolutionary algorithm for handling many-objective optimization problems

It has been shown that the multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) act poorly in solving many-objective optimization problems which include more than three objectives. The research emphasis, in recent years, has been put into improving the MOEAs to enable them to solve many-objective optimization problems efficiently. In this paper, we propose a new composite fitness evaluation function, in a novel way, to select quality solutions from the objective space of a many-objective optimization problem. Using this composite function, we develop a new algorithm on a well-known NSGA-II and call it FR-NSGA-II, a fast reference point based NSGA-II. The algorithm is evaluated for producing quality solutions measured in terms of proximity, diversity and computational time. The working logic of the algorithm is explained using a bi-objective linear programming problem. Then we test the algorithm using experiments with benchmark problems from DTLZ family. We also compare FR-NSGA-II with four competitive algorithms from the extant literature to show that FR-NSGA-II will produce quality solutions even if the number of objectives is as high as 20.     

Comparison of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms in hybrid Kansei engineering system for product form design

Understanding the affective needs of customers is crucial to the success of product design. Hybrid Kansei engineering system (HKES) is an expert system capable of generating products in accordance with the affective responses. HKES consists of two subsystems: forward Kansei engineering system (FKES) and backward Kansei engineering system (BKES). In previous studies, HKES was based primarily on single-objective optimization, such that only one optimal design was obtained in a given simulation run. The use of multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) in HKES was only attempted using the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II), such that very little work has been conducted to compare different MOEAs. In this paper, we propose an approach to HKES combining the methodologies of support vector regression (SVR) and MOEAs. In BKES, we constructed predictive models using SVR. In FKES, optimal design alternatives were generated using MOEAs. Representative designs were obtained using fuzzy c-means algorithm for clustering the Pareto front into groups. To enable comparison, we employed three typical MOEAs: NSGA-II, the Pareto envelope-based selection algorithm-II (PESA-II), and the strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm-2 (SPEA2). A case study of vase form design was provided to demonstrate the proposed approach. Our results suggest that NSGA-II has good convergence performance and hybrid performance; in contrast, SPEA2 provides the strong diversity required by designers. The proposed HKES is applicable to a wide variety of product design problems, while providing creative design ideas through the exploration of numerous Pareto optimal solutions.     

二维目标下分布性与收敛性结合的种群维护策略

种群维护是多目标进化算法的重要组成部分。针对传统方法在维护过程中只考虑分布性的情况,提出一种分布性与收敛性结合的种群维护策略,该方法用一种邻近个体间的相对趋近关系来表示其适应值,弥补了单纯Pareto支配关系的"粗糙性",并用一种可调邻域的方法对种群的密集程度进行控制。将其与NSGA-II和SPEA2进行对比,实验结果表明该算法在有效保持种群分布性的同时,拥有良好的收敛性和速度。     

Evaluating the epsilon-domination based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm for a quick computation of Pareto-optimal solutions

Since the suggestion of a computing procedure of multiple Pareto-optimal solutions in multi-objective optimization problems in the early Nineties, researchers have been on the look out for a procedure which is computationally fast and simultaneously capable of finding a well-converged and well-distributed set of solutions. Most multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) developed in the past decade are either good for achieving a well-distributed solutions at the expense of a large computational effort or computationally fast at the expense of achieving a not-so-good distribution of solutions. For example, although the Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm or SPEA (Zitzler and Thiele, 1999) produces a much better distribution compared to the elitist non-dominated sorting GA or NSGA-II (Deb et al., 2002a), the computational time needed to run SPEA is much greater. In this paper, we evaluate a recently-proposed steady-state MOEA (Deb et al., 2003) which was developed based on the epsilon-dominance concept introduced earlier(Laumanns et al., 2002) and using efficient parent and archive update strategies for achieving a well-distributed and well-converged set of solutions quickly. Based on an extensive comparative study with four other state-of-the-art MOEAs on a number of two, three, and four objective test problems, it is observed that the steady-state MOEA is a good compromise in terms of convergence near to the Pareto-optimal front, diversity of solutions, and computational time. Moreover, the epsilon-MOEA is a step closer towards making MOEAs pragmatic, particularly allowing a decision-maker to control the achievable accuracy in the obtained Pareto-optimal solutions.     

DOPGA: a new fitness assignment scheme for multi-objective evolutionary algorithms

In this article, a new fitness assignment scheme to evaluate the Pareto-optimal solutions for multi-objective evolutionary algorithms is proposed. The proposed DOmination Power of an individual Genetic Algorithm (DOPGA) method can order the individuals in a form in which each individual (the so-called solution) could have a unique rank. With this new method, a multi-objective problem can be treated as if it were a single-objective problem without drastically deviating from the Pareto definition. In DOPGA, relative position of a solution is embedded into the fitness assignment procedures. We compare the performance of the algorithm with two benchmark evolutionary algorithms (Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm (SPEA) and Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm 2 (SPEA2)) on 12 unconstrained bi-objective and one tri-objective test problems. DOPGA significantly outperforms SPEA on all test problems. DOPGA performs better than SPEA2 in terms of convergence metric on all test problems. Also, Pareto-optimal solutions found by DOPGA spread better than SPEA2 on eight of 13 test problems.     

基于多点非均匀变异的多目标极值优化算法研究

多目标进化算法因其在解决含有多个矛盾目标函数的多目标优化问题中的强大处理能力,正受到越来越多的关注与研究。极值优化作为一种新型的进化算法,已在各种离散优化、连续优化测试函数以及工程优化问题中得到了较为成功的应用,但有关多目标EO算法的研究却十分有限。本文将采用Pareto优化的基本原理引入到极值优化算法中,提出一种求解连续多目标优化问题的基于多点非均匀变异的多目标极值优化算法。通过对六个国际公认的连续多目标优化测试函数的仿真实验结果表明：本文提出算法相比NSGA-II、 PAES、SPEA和SPEA2等经典多目标优化算法在收敛性和分布性方面均具有优势。     

A fast and elitist multiobjective genetic algorithm: NSGA-II

Multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) that use non-dominated sorting and sharing have been criticized mainly for: (1) their O(MN³) computational complexity (where M is the number of objectives and N is the population size); (2) their non-elitism approach; and (3) the need to specify a sharing parameter. In this paper, we suggest a non-dominated sorting-based MOEA, called NSGA-II (Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II), which alleviates all of the above three difficulties. Specifically, a fast non-dominated sorting approach with O(MN²) computational complexity is presented. Also, a selection operator is presented that creates a mating pool by combining the parent and offspring populations and selecting the best N solutions (with respect to fitness and spread). Simulation results on difficult test problems show that NSGA-II is able, for most problems, to find a much better spread of solutions and better convergence near the true Pareto-optimal front compared to the Pareto-archived evolution strategy and the strength-Pareto evolutionary algorithm - two other elitist MOEAs that pay special attention to creating a diverse Pareto-optimal front. Moreover, we modify the definition of dominance in order to solve constrained multi-objective problems efficiently. Simulation results of the constrained NSGA-II on a number of test problems, including a five-objective, seven-constraint nonlinear problem, are compared with another constrained multi-objective optimizer, and the much better performance of NSGA-II is observed     

Reducing the run-time complexity of multiobjective EAs: The NSGA-II and other algorithms

The last decade has seen a surge of research activity on multiobjective optimization using evolutionary computation and a number of well performing algorithms have been published. The majority of these algorithms use fitness assignment based on Pareto-domination: Nondominated sorting, dominance counting, or identification of the nondominated solutions. The success of these algorithms indicates that this type of fitness is suitable for multiobjective problems, but so far the use of Pareto-based fitness has lead to program run times in O(GMN/sup 2/), where G is the number of generations, M is the number of objectives, and N is the population size. The N/sup 2/ factor should be reduced if possible, since it leads to long processing times for large population sizes. This paper presents a new and efficient algorithm for nondominated sorting, which can speed up the processing time of some multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) substantially. The new algorithm is incorporated into the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) and reduces the overall run-time complexity of this algorithm to O(GN log/sup M-1/N), much faster than the O(GMN/sup 2/) complexity published by Deb et al. (2002). Experiments demonstrate that the improved version of the algorithm is indeed much faster than the previous one. The paper also points out that multiobjective EAs using fitness based on dominance counting and identification of nondominated solutions can be improved significantly in terms of running time by using efficient algorithms known from computer science instead of inefficient O(MN/sup 2/) algorithms.     

基于个体密集距离的多目标进化算法

外部种群维护和适应度赋值是多目标进化算法（MOEA）的两个重要部分，该文首先对这两个问题目前已有的处理方法进行了分析，然后提出了基于个体密集距离的外部种群维护方法，并在将所有个体根据Pareto支配关系分成四个层次的基础上，给出了一种由个体密集距离定义的适应度函数，最后将基于个体密集距离的多目标进化算法CMOEA应用于几个常用的测试函数，并和SPEA，SPEA-2进行了比较，计算结果表明CMOEA具有良好的搜索性能．