A Perturbed Self-organizing Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm to solve Multiobjective TSP

Travelling Salesman Problem (TSP) is a very important NP-Hard problem getting focused more on these days. Having improvement on TSP, right now consider the multi-objective TSP (MOTSP), broadened occurrence of travelling salesman problem. Since TSP is NP-hard issue MOTSP is additionally a NP-hard issue. There are a lot of algorithms and methods to solve the MOTSP among which Multiobjective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition is appropriate to solve it nowadays. This work presents a new algorithm which combines the Data Perturbation, Self-Organizing Map (SOM) and MOEA/D to solve the problem of MOTSP, named Perturbed Self-Organizing multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm (P-SMEA). In P-SMEA Self-Organizing Map (SOM) is used extract neighborhood relationship information and with MOEA/D subproblems are generated and solved simultaneously to obtain the optimal solution. Data Perturbation is applied to avoid the local optima. So by using the P-SMEA, MOTSP can be handled efficiently. The experimental results show that P-SMEA outperforms MOEA/D and SMEA on a set of test instances

Hybridization of Decomposition and Local Search for Multiobjective Optimization

Combining ideas from evolutionary algorithms, decomposition approaches, and Pareto local search, this paper suggests a simple yet efficient memetic algorithm for combinatorial multiobjective optimization problems: memetic algorithm based on decomposition (MOMAD). It decomposes a combinatorial multiobjective problem into a number of single objective optimization problems using an aggregation method. MOMAD evolves three populations: 1) population PLfor recording the current solution to each subproblem; 2) population PPfor storing starting solutions for Pareto local search; and 3) an external population PEfor maintaining all the nondominated solutions found so far during the search. A problem-specific single objective heuristic can be applied to these subproblems to initialize the three populations. At each generation, a Pareto local search method is first applied to search a neighborhood of each solution in PPto update PLand PE. Then a single objective local search is applied to each perturbed solution in PLfor improving PLand PE, and reinitializing PP. The procedure is repeated until a stopping condition is met. MOMAD provides a generic hybrid multiobjective algorithmic framework in which problem specific knowledge, well developed single objective local search and heuristics and Pareto local search methods can be hybridized. It is a population based iterative method and thus an anytime algorithm. Extensive experiments have been conducted in this paper to study MOMAD and compare it with some other state-of-the-art algorithms on the multiobjective traveling salesman problem and the multiobjective knapsack problem. The experimental results show that our proposed algorithm outperforms or performs similarly to the best so far heuristics on these two problems

Reinforcement Learning-assisted Evolutionary Algorithm: A Survey and Research Opportunities

Evolutionary algorithms (EA), a class of stochastic search methods based on the principles of natural evolution, have received widespread acclaim for their exceptional performance in various real-world optimization problems. While researchers worldwide have proposed a wide variety of EAs, certain limitations remain, such as slow convergence speed and poor generalization capabilities. Consequently, numerous scholars actively explore improvements to algorithmic structures, operators, search patterns, etc., to enhance their optimization performance. Reinforcement learning (RL) integrated as a component in the EA framework has demonstrated superior performance in recent years. This paper presents a comprehensive survey on integrating reinforcement learning into the evolutionary algorithm, referred to as reinforcement learning-assisted evolutionary algorithm (RL-EA). We begin with the conceptual outlines of reinforcement learning and the evolutionary algorithm. We then provide a taxonomy of RL-EA. Subsequently, we discuss the RL-EA integration method, the RL-assisted strategy adopted by RL-EA, and its applications according to the existing literature. The RL-assisted procedure is divided according to the implemented functions including solution generation, learnable objective function, algorithm/operator/sub-population selection, parameter adaptation, and other strategies. Finally, we analyze potential directions for future research. This survey serves as a rich resource for researchers interested in RL-EA as it overviews the current state-of-the-art and highlights the associated challenges. By leveraging this survey, readers can swiftly gain insights into RL-EA to develop efficient algorithms, thereby fostering further advancements in this emerging field.Comment: 26 pages, 16 figure

Combinatorial optimization and metaheuristics

Today, combinatorial optimization is one of the youngest and most active areas of discrete mathematics. It is a branch of optimization in applied mathematics and computer science, related to operational research, algorithm theory and computational complexity theory. It sits at the intersection of several fields, including artificial intelligence, mathematics and software engineering. Its increasing interest arises for the fact that a large number of scientific and industrial problems can be formulated as abstract combinatorial optimization problems, through graphs and/or (integer) linear programs. Some of these problems have polynomial-time (“efficient”) algorithms, while most of them are NP-hard, i.e. it is not proved that they can be solved in polynomial-time. Mainly, it means that it is not possible to guarantee that an exact solution to the problem can be found and one has to settle for an approximate solution with known performance guarantees. Indeed, the goal of approximate methods is to find “quickly” (reasonable run-times), with “high” probability, provable “good” solutions (low error from the real optimal solution). In the last 20 years, a new kind of algorithm commonly called metaheuristics have emerged in this class, which basically try to combine heuristics in high level frameworks aimed at efficiently and effectively exploring the search space. This report briefly outlines the components, concepts, advantages and disadvantages of different metaheuristic approaches from a conceptual point of view, in order to analyze their similarities and differences. The two very significant forces of intensification and diversification, that mainly determine the behavior of a metaheuristic, will be pointed out. The report concludes by exploring the importance of hybridization and integration methods

Hybrid non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm with adaptive operators selection

Multiobjective optimization entails minimizing or maximizing multiple objective functions subject to a set of constraints. Many real world applications can be formulated as multi-objective optimization problems (MOPs), which often involve multiple conflicting objectives to be optimized simultaneously. Recently, a number of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) were developed suggested for these MOPs as they do not require problem specific information. They find a set of non-dominated solutions in a single run. The evolutionary process on which they are based, typically relies on a single genetic operator. Here, we suggest an algorithm which uses a basket of search operators. This is because it is never easy to choose the most suitable operator for a given problem. The novel hybrid non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm (HNSGA) introduced here in this paper and tested on the ZDT (Zitzler-Deb-Thiele) and CEC’09 (2009 IEEE Conference on Evolutionary Computations) benchmark problems specifically formulated for MOEAs. Numerical results prove that the proposed algorithm is competitive with state-of-the-art MOEAs