Automatic Configuration Methods Research Articles

On the automatic generation of metaheuristic algorithms for combinatorial optimization problems

Metaheuristic algorithms have become one of the preferred approaches for solving optimization problems. Finding the best metaheuristic for a given problem is often difficult due to the large number of available approaches and possible algorithmic designs. Moreover, high-performing metaheuristics often combine general-purpose and problem-specific algorithmic components. We propose here an approach for automatically designing metaheuristics using a flexible framework of algorithmic components, from which algorithms are instantiated and evaluated by an automatic configuration method. The rules for composing algorithmic components are defined implicitly by the properties of each algorithmic component, in contrast to previous proposals, which require a handwritten algorithmic template or grammar. As a result, extending our framework with additional components, even problem-specific or user-defined ones, automatically updates the design space. Furthermore, since the generated algorithms are made up of components, they can be easily interpreted. We provide an implementation of our proposal and demonstrate its benefits by outperforming previous research in three distinct problems from completely different families: a facility layout problem, a vehicle routing problem and a clustering problem.

Configuration method of PSS lead-lag compensator parameters

Power System Stabilizer (PSS) is an important measure to increase damping and suppress low frequency oscillations of power system. During PSS test, the time constant of lead-lag compensator need to be configured, considering the inefficiency and optimization problem when configuring parameters empirically, this paper proposes automatic configuration method of PSS parameters based on Matlab, by setting the expected phase value at each frequency and constructing the objective function with the sum of phase differences square, the automatic calculation of PSS parameters under specific phase requirements at each frequency can be realized, the detailed steps of this method are given, and the method is verified during the PSS test of an 300Mw thermal-power generating unit finally.

Research and Implementation of Automatic Configuration Method for Monitoring Information Table of Smart Substation Equipment

Aiming at the problems of low efficiency and difficult configuration of equipment monitoring information in smart substation, an automatic generation method of substation monitoring information table is proposed. By analyzing the configuration file of smart substation, the information of primary and secondary equipment is obtained, and the full model of equipment monitoring information table can be established automatically. According to the classification characteristics of the standard monitoring template, the equipment monitoring information table is automatically generated by association mapping with the monitoring template.

Incorporating decision-maker’s preferences into the automatic configuration of bi-objective optimisation algorithms

Automatic configuration (AC) methods are increasingly used to tune and design optimisation algorithms for problems with multiple objectives. Most AC methods use unary quality indicators, which assign a single scalar value to an approximation to the Pareto front, to compare the performance of different optimisers. These quality indicators, however, imply preferences beyond Pareto-optimality that may differ from those of the decision maker (DM). Although it is possible to incorporate DM’s preferences into quality indicators, e.g., by means of the weighted hypervolume indicator (HVw), expressing preferences in terms of weight function is not always intuitive nor an easy task for a DM, in particular, when comparing the stochastic outcomes of several algorithm configurations. A more visual approach to compare such outcomes is the visualisation of their empirical attainment functions (EAFs) differences. This paper proposes using such visualisations as a way of eliciting information about regions of the objective space that are preferred by the DM. We present a method to convert the information about EAF differences into a HVw that will assign higher quality values to approximation fronts that result in EAF differences preferred by the DM. We show that the resulting HVw may be used by an AC method to guide the configuration of multi-objective optimisers according to the preferences of the DM. We evaluate the proposed approach on a well-known benchmark problem. Finally, we apply our approach to re-configuring, according to different DM’s preferences, a multi-objective optimiser tackling a real-world production planning problem arising in the manufacturing industry.

Automatically Designing State-of-the-Art Multi- and Many-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms.

A recent comparison of well-established multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) has helped better identify the current state-of-the-art by considering (i) parameter tuning through automatic configuration, (ii) a wide range of different setups, and (iii) various performance metrics. Here, we automatically devise MOEAs with verified state-of-the-art performance for multi- and many-objective continuous optimization. Our work is based on two main considerations. The first is that high-performing algorithms can be obtained from a configurable algorithmic framework in an automated way. The second is that multiple performance metrics may be required to guide this automatic design process. In the first part of this work, we extend our previously proposed algorithmic framework, increasing the number of MOEAs, underlying evolutionary algorithms, and search paradigms that it comprises. These components can be combined following a general MOEA template, and an automatic configuration method is used to instantiate high-performing MOEA designs that optimize a given performance metric and present state-of-the-art performance. In the second part, we propose a multiobjective formulation for the automatic MOEA design, which proves critical for the context of many-objective optimization due to the disagreement of established performance metrics. Our proposed formulation leads to an automatically designed MOEA that presents state-of-the-art performance according to a set of metrics, rather than a single one.

Latin Hypercube Designs with Branching and Nested Factors for Initialization of Automatic Algorithm Configuration.

The configuration of algorithms is a laborious and difficult process. Thus, it is advisable to automate this task by using appropriate automatic configuration methods. The method is among the most widely used in the literature. By default, initializes its search process via uniform sampling of algorithm configurations. Although better initialization methods exist in the literature, the mixed-variable (numerical and categorical) nature of typical parameter spaces and the presence of conditional parameters make most of the methods not applicable in practice. Here, we present an improved initialization method that overcomes these limitations by employing concepts from the design and analysis of computer experiments with branching and nested factors. Our results show that this initialization method is not only better, in some scenarios, than the uniform sampling used by the current version of , but also better than other initialization methods present in other automatic configuration methods.

Star-like auto-configurable layouts of variable radius for visualizing and exploring RDF/S ontologies

The visualization of ontologies is a challenging task especially if they are large. In this paper we propose a visualization approach which is based on star-like graphs of variable radius which enables users to gradually explore and navigate through the entire ontology without overloading them. The star-like graphs are visualized using a Force Directed Placement algorithm (FDP) specially suited for RDF schemas whose configuration parameters can be adjusted interactively by the end-user via an intuitive on-screen tool bar. In addition, and since each star-like graph exhibits different graph features, we propose a novel automatic configuration method for the FDP algorithm parameters that is based on a number of quality metrics (area density and verticality of subclass hierarchies) and corresponding corrective actions. The experimental evaluation showed the quality of the yielded layout is significantly improved and the proposed approach is acceptably fast for real-time exploration. The user study showed that users prefer these views and perform various very common tasks faster.

Automatic configuration method for IP routers in dynamically changing network

AbstractMedium‐ and small‐scale business organizations and schools are sometimes unable to obtain a sufficient number of network operators to achieve an adequate initial network configuration with IP routers, or to perform reconfiguration of the IP routers when the network configuration is dynamically modified, as in the case of addition and removal of IP routers. The purpose of this paper is to reduce the management workload in such an environment. An automatic configuration method for IP routers to deal with dynamic modification of the network is proposed. When the ARCP (automatic router configuration protocol), which is the conventional method for automatic configuration of IP routers, is run using the management server, difficulty arises in the modification of the IP router configuration information when an IP router is removed or three or more IP routers are connected to the same segment. A further problem is that the reduction of the management workload is less than might be expected, since there are many points to be set in the management server before starting the operation. An attempt is made to remedy these problems by proposing a new extended ARCP. The conventional method and the extended ARCP are compared theoretically and by simulation on a network with the assumed environment. The extended ARCP is shown to remedy the above problems and to reduce the number of points to be set in the management server by 30% compared to the conventional method. © 2006 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Electron Comm Jpn Pt 1, 89(5): 15–27, 2006; Published online in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI 10.1002/ecja.20247