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.

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are often wellsuited for optimization problems involving several, often conflicting objectives. Since 1985, various evolutionary approaches to multiobjective optimization have been developed that are capable of searching for multiple solutions concurrently in a single run. However, the few comparative studies of different methods presented up to now remain mostly qualitative and are often restricted to a few approaches. In this paper, four multiobjective EAs are compared quantitatively where an extended 0/1 knapsack problem is taken as a basis. Furthermore, we introduce a new evolutionary approach to multicriteria optimization, the Strength Pareto EA (SPEA), that combines several features of previous multiobjective EAs in a unique manner. It is characterized by (a) storing nondominated solutions externally in a second, continuously updated population, (b) evaluating an individual's fitness dependent on the number of external nondominated points that domina...

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.

The Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm (SPEA) (Zitzler and Thiele 1999) is a relatively recent technique for finding or approximating the Pareto-optimal set for multiobjective optimization problems. In different studies (Zitzler and Thiele 1999; Zitzler, Deb, and Thiele 2000) SPEA has shown very good performance in comparison to other multiobjective evolutionary algorithms, and therefore it has been a point of reference in various recent investigations, e.g., (Corne, Knowles, and Oates 2000). Furthermore, it has been used in different applications, e.g., (Lahanas, Milickovic, Baltas, and Zamboglou 2001). In this paper, an improved version, namely SPEA2, is proposed, which incorporates in contrast to its predecessor a fine-grained fitness assignment strategy, a density estimation technique, and an enhanced archive truncation method. The comparison of SPEA2 with SPEA and two other modern elitist methods, PESA and NSGA-II, on different test problems yields promising results. 1

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.

Abstract. This paper discusses how preference information of the decision maker can in general be integrated into multiobjective search. The main idea is to first define the optimization goal in terms of a binary performance measure (indicator) and then to directly use this measure in the selection process. To this end, we propose a general indicator-based evolutionary algorithm (IBEA) that can be combined with arbitrary indicators. In contrast to existing algorithms, IBEA can be adapted to the preferences of the user and moreover does not require any additional diversity preservation mechanism such as fitness sharing to be used. It is shown on several continuous and discrete benchmark problems that IBEA can substantially improve on the results generated by two popular algorithms, namely NSGA-II and SPEA2, with respect to different performance measures. 1

This paper presents a Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) algorithm for multiobjective optimization problems. PSO is modified by using a dynamic neighborhood strategy, new particle memory updating, and one-dimension optimization to deal with multiple objectives. Several benchmark cases were tested and showed that PSO could efficiently find multiple Pareto optimal solutions.

Mu l ip often conflicting objectives arise naturalj in most real worl optimization scenarios. As evol tionaryalAxjO hms possess several characteristics that are desirabl e for this type of probl em, this clOv of search strategies has been used for mul tiobjective optimization for more than a decade. Meanwhil e evol utionary mul tiobjective optimization has become establ ished as a separate subdiscipl ine combining the fiel ds of evol utionary computation and cl assical mul tipl e criteria decision ma ing. This paper gives an overview of evol tionary mu l iobjective optimization with the focus on methods and theory. On the one hand, basic principl es of mu l iobjective optimization and evol tionary alA#xv hms are presented, and various al gorithmic concepts such as fitness assignment, diversity preservation, and el itism are discussed. On the other hand, the tutorial incl udes some recent theoretical resul ts on the performance of mu l iobjective evol tionaryalvDfifl hms and addresses the question of how to simpl ify the exchange of methods and appl ications by means of a standardized interface. 1

It is now well established that more than one performance metrics are necessary for evaluating a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA). Although there exist a number of performance metrics in the MOEA literature, most of them are applied to the final non-dominated set obtained by an MOEA to evaluate its performance. In this paper, we suggest a couple of running metrics - one for measuring the convergence to a reference set and other for measuring the diversity in population members at every generation of an MOEA run. Either using a known Pareto-optimal front or an agglomeration of generation-wise populations, the suggested metrics reveal important insights and interesting dynamics of the working of an MOEA or help provide a comparative evaluation of two or more MOEAs.

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.