A dynamic multi-objective evolutionary algorithm using a change severity-based adaptive population management strategy

Abstract

In addition to the need for simultaneously optimizing several competing objectives, many real-world problems are also dynamic in nature. These problems are called dynamic multi-objective optimization problems. Applying evolutionary algorithms to solve dynamic optimization problems has obtained great attention among many researchers. However, most of works are restricted to the single-objective case. In this work, we propose an adaptive hybrid population management strategy using memory, local search and random strategies, to effectively handle environment dynamicity for the multi-objective case where objective functions change over time. Moreover, the proposed strategy is based on a new technique that detects the change severity, according to which it adjusts the number of memory and random solutions to be used. This ensures, on the one hand, a high level of convergence and on the other hand, the required diversity. We propose a dynamic version of the Non dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm II, within which we integrate the above-mentioned strategies. Empirical results show that our proposal based on the use of the adaptive strategy is able to handle dynamic environments and to track the Pareto front as it changes over time. Moreover, when confronted with several recently proposed dynamic algorithms, it has presented competitive and better results on most problems.