Multi-objective evolutionary algorithms which use non-dominated sorting and sharing have been mainly criticized for their (i) O(MN computational complexity (where M is the number of objectives and N is the population size), (ii) non-elitism approach, and (iii) the need for specifying a sharing parameter. In this paper, we suggest a non-dominated sorting based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (we called it the Non-dominated Sorting GA-II or NSGA-II) which alleviates all the above three difficulties. Specifically, a fast non-dominated sorting approach with O(MN ) computational complexity is presented. Second, a selection operator is presented which creates a mating pool by combining the parent and child populations and selecting the best (with respect to fitness and spread) N solutions. Simulation results on a number of difficult test problems show that the proposed NSGA-II, in most problems, is able to find much better spread of solutions and better convergence near the true Pareto-optimal front compared to PAES and SPEA - two other elitist multi-objective EAs which pay special attention towards creating a diverse Pareto-optimal front. Moreover, we modify the definition of dominance in order to solve constrained multi-objective problems eciently. Simulation results of the constrained NSGA-II on a number of test problems, including a five-objective, seven-constraint non-linear problem, are compared with another constrained multi-objective optimizer and much better performance of NSGA-II is observed. Because of NSGA-II's low computational requirements, elitist approach, parameter-less niching approach, and simple constraint-handling strategy, NSGA-II should find increasing applications in the coming years.

Multi-objective evolutionary algorithms which use non-dominated sorting and sharing have been mainly criticized for their (i) -4 computational complexity (where is the number of objectives and is the population size), (ii) non-elitism approach, and (iii) the need for specifying a sharing parameter. In this paper, we suggest a non-dominated sorting based multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (we called it the Non-dominated Sorting GA-II or NSGA-II) which alleviates all the above three difficulties. Specifically, a fast non-dominated sorting approach with computational complexity is presented. Second, a selection operator is presented which creates a mating pool by combining the parent and child populations and selecting the best (with respect to fitness and spread) solutions. Simulation results on five difficult test problems show that the proposed NSGA-II is able to find much better spread of solutions in all problems compared to PAES---another elitist multi-objective EA which pays special attention towards creating a diverse Pareto-optimal front. Because of NSGA-II's low computational requirements, elitist approach, and parameter-less sharing approach, NSGA-II should find increasing applications in the years to come.

In this paper, we provide a systematic comparison of various evolutionary approaches to multiobjective optimization using six carefully chosen test functions. Each test function involves a particular feature that is known to cause difficulty in the evolutionary optimization process, mainly in converging to the Pareto-optimal front (e.g., multimodality and deception). By investigating these different problem features separately, it is possible to predict the kind of problems to which a certain technique is or is not well suited. However, in contrast to what was suspected beforehand, the experimental results indicate a hierarchy of the algorithms under consideration. Furthermore, the emerging effects are evidence that the suggested test functions provide sufficient complexity to compare multiobjective optimizers. Finally, elitism is shown to be an important factor for improving evolutionary multiobjective search. Keywords Evolutionary algorithms, multiobjective optimization, ...

Solving optimization problems with multiple (often conflicting) objectives is, generally, a very difficult goal. Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) were initially extended and applied during the mid-eighties in an attempt to stochastically solve problems of this generic class. During the past decade, a variety of multiobjective EA (MOEA) techniques have been proposed and applied to many scientific and engineering applications. Our discussion's intent is to rigorously define multiobjective optimization problems and certain related concepts, present an MOEA classification scheme, and evaluate the variety of contemporary MOEAs. Current MOEA theoretical developments are evaluated; specific topics addressed include fitness functions, Pareto ranking, niching, fitness sharing, mating restriction, and secondary populations. Since the development and application of MOEAs is a dynamic and rapidly growing activity, we focus on key analytical insights based upon critical MOEA evaluation of c...

. This paper presents a critical review of the most important evolutionary-based multiobjective optimization techniques developed over the years, emphasizing the importance of analyzing their Operations Research roots as a way to motivate the development of new approaches that exploit the search capabilities of evolutionary algorithms. Each technique is briefly described mentioning its advantages and disadvantages, their degree of applicability and some of their known applications. Finally, the future trends in this discipline and some of the open areas of research are also addressed. Keywords: multiobjective optimization, multicriteria optimization, vector optimization, genetic algorithms, evolutionary algorithms, artificial intelligence. 1 Introduction Since the pioneer work of Rosenberg in the late 60s regarding the possibility of using genetic-based search to deal with multiple objectives, this new area of research (now called evolutionary multiobjective optimization) has grown c...

After adequately demonstrating the ability to solve di#erent two-objective optimization problems, multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) must now show their e#cacy in handling problems having more than two objectives. In this paper, we have suggested three di#erent approaches for systematically designing test problems for this purpose. The simplicity of construction, scalability to any number of decision variables and objectives, knowledge of exact shape and location of the resulting Pareto-optimal front, and introduction of controlled di#culties in both converging to the true Pareto-optimal front and maintaining a widely distributed set of solutions are the main features of the suggested test problems. Because of the above features, they should be found useful in various research activities on MOEAs, such as testing the performance of a new MOEA, comparing di#erent MOEAs, and better understanding of the working principles of MOEAs.

After adequately demonstrating the ability to solve different two-objective optimization problems, multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) must now show their efficacy in handling problems having more than two objectives. In this paper, we suggest three different approaches for systematically designing test problems for this purpose. The simplicity of construction, scalability to any number of decision variables and objectives, knowledge of exact shape and location of the resulting Paretooptimal front, and ability to control difficulties in both converging to the true Pareto-optimal front and maintaining a widely distributed set of solutions are the main features of the suggested test problems. Because of these features, they should be found useful in various research activities on MOEAs, such as testing the performance of a new MOEA, comparing different MOEAs, and having a better understanding of the working principles of MOEAs.

This paper introduces a proposal to extend the heuristic called "particle swarm optimization" (PSO) to deal with multiobjective optimization problems. Our approach uses the concept of Pareto dominance to determine the flight direction of a particle and it maintains previously found nondominated vectors in a global repository that is later used by other particles to guide their own flight. The approach is validated using several standard test functions from the specialized literature. Our results indicate that our approach is highly competitive with current evolutionary multiobjective optimization techniques.

. We introduce a new multiobjective evolutionary algorithm called PESA (the Pareto Envelope-based Selection Algorithm), in which selection and diversity maintenance are controlled via a simple hyper-grid based scheme. PESA's selection method is relatively unusual in comparison with current well known multiobjective evolutionary algorithms, which tend to use counts based on the degree to which solutions dominate others in the population. The diversity maintenance method is similar to that used by certain other methods. The main attraction of PESA is the integration of selection and diversity maintenance, whereby essentially the same technique is used for both tasks. The resulting algorithm is simple to describe, with full pseudocode provided here and real code available from the authors. We compare PESA with two recent strongperforming MOEAs on some multiobjective test problems recently proposed by Deb. We find that PESA emerges as the best method overall on these problems...

Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms (MOEAs) have been the subject of numer- ous studies over the past 20 years. Recent work has highlighted the use of an active archive of elite, non-dominated solutions to improve the optimisation speed of these algorithms.