Evolutionary Dynamic Multiobjective Optimization via Learning From Historical Search Process.

Abstract

Dynamic multiobjective optimization problems are challenging due to their fast convergence and diversity maintenance requirements. Prediction-based evolutionary algorithms currently gain much attention for meeting these requirements. However, it is not always the case that an elaborate predictor is suitable for different problems and the quality of historical solutions is sufficient to support prediction, which limits the availability of prediction-based methods over various problems. Faced with these issues, this article proposes a knowledge learning strategy for change response in the dynamic multiobjective optimization. Unlike prediction approaches that estimate the future optima from previously obtained solutions, in the proposed strategy, we react to changes via learning from the historical search process. We introduce a method to extract the knowledge within the previous search experience. The extracted knowledge can accelerate convergence as well as introduce diversity for the optimization of the future environment. We conduct a comprehensive experiment on comparing the proposed strategy with the state-of-the-art algorithms. Results demonstrate the better performance of the proposed strategy in terms of solution quality and computational efficiency.