An Evolutionary Many-Objective Optimization Algorithm Using Reference-Point Based Nondominated Sorting Approach, Part II: Handling Constraints and Extending to an Adaptive Approach

Abstract

In the precursor paper, a many-objective optimization method (NSGA-III), based on the NSGA-II framework, was suggested and applied to a number of unconstrained test and practical problems with box constraints alone. In this paper, we extend NSGA-III to solve generic constrained many-objective optimization problems. In the process, we also suggest three types of constrained test problems that are scalable to any number of objectives and provide different types of challenges to a many-objective optimizer. A previously suggested MOEA/D algorithm is also extended to solve constrained problems. Results using constrained NSGA-III and constrained MOEA/D show an edge of the former, particularly in solving problems with a large number of objectives. Furthermore, the NSGA-III algorithm is made adaptive in updating and including new reference points on the fly. The resulting adaptive NSGA-III is shown to provide a denser representation of the Pareto-optimal front, compared to the original NSGA-III with an identical computational effort. This, and the original NSGA-III paper, together suggest and amply test a viable evolutionary many-objective optimization algorithm for handling constrained and unconstrained problems. These studies should encourage researchers to use and pay further attention in evolutionary many-objective optimization.