A Dual-Population-Based NSGA-III for Constrained Many-Objective Optimization

Abstract

The main challenge for constrained many-objective optimization problems (CMaOPs) is how to achieve a balance between feasible and infeasible solutions. Most of the existing constrained many-objective evolutionary algorithms (CMaOEAs) are feasibility-driven, neglecting the maintenance of population convergence and diversity when dealing with conflicting objectives and constraints. This might lead to the population being stuck at some locally optimal or locally feasible regions. To alleviate the above challenges, we proposed a dual-population-based NSGA-III, named DP-NSGA-III, where the two populations exchange information through the offspring. The main population based on the NSGA-III solves CMaOPs and the auxiliary populations with different environment selection ignore the constraints. In addition, we designed an ε-constraint handling method in combination with NSGA-III, aiming to exploit the excellent infeasible solutions in the main population. The proposed DP-NSGA-III is compared with four state-of-the-art CMaOEAs on a series of benchmark problems. The experimental results show that the proposed evolutionary algorithm is highly competitive in solving CMaOPs.

Keywords

• constrained many-objective optimization
• evolutionary algorithm
• dual-population
• coevolution
• ε-constraint handling