Balancing Objective Optimization and Constraint Satisfaction in Constrained Evolutionary Multiobjective Optimization

• Published in: IEEE transactions on cybernetics Vol. 52; no. 9; pp. 9559 - 9572
• Main Authors: Tian, Ye, Zhang, Yajie, Su, Yansen, Zhang, Xingyi, Tan, Kay Chen, Jin, Yaochu
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States IEEE 01.09.2022; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Constrained multiobjective optimization problems (CMOPs); constraint satisfaction; Constraints; Convergence; evolutionary algorithm; Evolutionary algorithms; Evolutionary computation; Multiple objective analysis; objective optimization; Optimization; Search problems; Sociology; Sorting; Statistics
• ISSN: 2168-2267; 2168-2275; 2168-2275
• DOI: 10.1109/TCYB.2020.3021138

Both objective optimization and constraint satisfaction are crucial for solving constrained multiobjective optimization problems, but the existing evolutionary algorithms encounter difficulties in striking a good balance between them when tackling complex feasible regions. To address this issue, this article proposes a two-stage evolutionary algorithm, which adjusts the fitness evaluation strategies during the evolutionary process to adaptively balance objective optimization and constraint satisfaction. The proposed algorithm can switch between the two stages according to the status of the current population, enabling the population to cross the infeasible region and reach the feasible regions in one stage, and to spread along the feasible boundaries in the other stage. Experimental studies on four benchmark suites and three real-world applications demonstrate the superiority of the proposed algorithm over the state-of-the-art algorithms, especially on problems with complex feasible regions.