A regularity model-based multiobjective estimation of distribution algorithm with reducing redundant cluster operator

Abstract

A regularity model-based multiobjective estimation of distribution algorithm (RM-MEDA) has been proposed for solving continuous multiobjective optimization problems with variable linkages. RM-MEDA is a kind of estimation of distribution algorithms and, therefore, modeling plays a critical role. In RM-MEDA, the population is split into several clusters to build the model. Moreover, the fixed number of clusters is recommended in RM-MEDA when solving different kinds of problems. However, based on our experiments, we find that the number of clusters is problem-dependent and has a significant effect on the performance of RM-MEDA. Motivated by the above observation, in this paper we improve the clustering process and propose a reducing redundant cluster operator (RRCO) to build more precise model during the evolution. By combining RRCO with RM-MEDA, we present an improved version of RM-MEDA, named IRM-MEDA. In this paper, we also construct four additional continuous multiobjective optimization test instances. The experimental results have shown that IRM-MEDA outperforms RM-MEDA in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. In particular, IRM-MEDA performs on average 31.67% faster than RM-MEDA.