Evolutionary Dynamic Multi-Objective Optimisation : A survey

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Evolutionary Algorithms in Engineering Design Optimization

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are population-based global optimizers, which, due to their characteristics, have allowed us to solve, in a straightforward way, many real world optimization problems in the last three decades, particularly in engineering fields. Their main advantages are the following: they do not require any requisite to the objective/fitness evaluation function (continuity, derivability, convexity, etc.); they are not limited by the appearance of discrete and/or mixed variables or by the requirement of uncertainty quantification in the search. Moreover, they can deal with more than one objective function simultaneously through the use of evolutionary multi-objective optimization algorithms. This set of advantages, and the continuously increased computing capability of modern computers, has enhanced their application in research and industry. From the application point of view, in this Special Issue, all engineering fields are welcomed, such as aerospace and aeronautical, biomedical, civil, chemical and materials science, electronic and telecommunications, energy and electrical, manufacturing, logistics and transportation, mechanical, naval architecture, reliability, robotics, structural, etc. Within the EA field, the integration of innovative and improvement aspects in the algorithms for solving real world engineering design problems, in the abovementioned application fields, are welcomed and encouraged, such as the following: parallel EAs, surrogate modelling, hybridization with other optimization techniques, multi-objective and many-objective optimization, etc

MOMCMC: An Efficient Monte Carlo Method for Multi-Objective Sampling Over Real Parameter Space

In this paper, we present a new population-based Monte Carlo method, so-called MOMCMC (Multi-Objective Markov Chain Monte Carlo). for sampling in the presence of multiple objective functions in real parameter space. The MOMCMC method is designed to address the multi-objective sampling problem, which is not only of interest in exploring diversified solutions at the Pareto optimal front in the function space of multiple objective functions, but also those near the front. MOMCMC integrates Differential Evolution (DE) style crossover into Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) to adaptively propose new solutions from the current population. The significance of dominance is taken into consideration in MOMCMC\u27s fitness assignment scheme while balancing the solution\u27s optimality and diversity. Moreover, the acceptance rate in MOMCMC is used to control the sampling bandwidth of the solutions near the Pareto optimal front. As a result, the computational results of MOMCMC with the high-dimensional ZDT benchmark functions demonstrate its efficiency in obtaining solution samples at or near the Pareto optimal front. Compared to MOSCEM (Multiobjective Shuffled Complex Evolution Metropolis), an existing Monte Carlo sampling method for multi-objective optimization, MOMCMC exhibits significantly faster convergence to the Pareto optimal front. Furthermore, with small population size, MOMCMC also shows effectiveness in sampling complicated multiobjective function space

An evolutionary multi-objective optimization system for earthworks

Earthworks involve the levelling or shaping of a target area through the moving or processing of the ground surface. Most construction projects require earthworks, which are heavily dependent on mechanical equipment (e.g., excavators, trucks and compactors). Often, earthworks are the most costly and time-consuming component of infrastructure constructions (e.g., road, railway and airports) and current pressure for higher productivity and safety highlights the need to optimize earthworks, which is a nontrivial task. Most previous attempts at tackling this problem focus on single-objective optimization of partial processes or aspects of earthworks, overlooking the advantages of a multi-objective and global optimization. This work describes a novel optimization system based on an evolutionary multi-objective approach, capable of globally optimizing several objectives simultaneously and dynamically. The proposed system views an earthwork construction as a production line, where the goal is to optimize resources under two crucial criteria (costs and duration) and focus the evolutionary search (non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II) on compaction allocation, using linear programming to distribute the remaining equipment (e.g., excavators). Several experiments were held using real-world data from a Portuguese construction site, showing that the proposed system is quite competitive when compared with current manual earthwork equipment allocation.The authors wish to thank FCT for the financial support under the doctoral Grant SFRH/BD/71501/2010, as well as the construction company that kindly provided the real-world data. Also, we wish to thank Olaf Mersmann for kindly providing the R code for the SMS-EMOA algorithm

Identifying and Detecting Attacks in Industrial Control Systems

The integrity of industrial control systems (ICS) found in utilities, oil and natural gas pipelines, manufacturing plants and transportation is critical to national wellbeing and security. Such systems depend on hundreds of field devices to manage and monitor a physical process. Previously, these devices were specific to ICS but they are now being replaced by general purpose computing technologies and, increasingly, these are being augmented with Internet of Things (IoT) nodes. Whilst there are benefits to this approach in terms of cost and flexibility, it has attracted a wider community of adversaries. These include those with significant domain knowledge, such as those responsible for attacks on Iran’s Nuclear Facilities, a Steel Mill in Germany, and Ukraine’s power grid; however, non specialist attackers are becoming increasingly interested in the physical damage it is possible to cause. At the same time, the approach increases the number and range of vulnerabilities to which ICS are subject; regrettably, conventional techniques for analysing such a large attack space are inadequate, a cause of major national concern. In this thesis we introduce a generalisable approach based on evolutionary multiobjective algorithms to assist in identifying vulnerabilities in complex heterogeneous ICS systems. This is both challenging and an area that is currently lacking research. Our approach has been to review the security of currently deployed ICS systems, and then to make use of an internationally recognised ICS simulation testbed for experiments, assuming that the attacking community largely lack specific ICS knowledge. Using the simulator, we identified vulnerabilities in individual components and then made use of these to generate attacks. A defence against these attacks in the form of novel intrusion detection systems were developed, based on a range of machine learning models. Finally, this was further subject to attacks created using the evolutionary multiobjective algorithms, demonstrating, for the first time, the feasibility of creating sophisticated attacks against a well-protected adversary using automated mechanisms

Improved Fitness Dependent Optimizer for Solving Economic Load Dispatch Problem

Economic Load Dispatch depicts a fundamental role in the operation of power systems, as it decreases the environmental load, minimizes the operating cost, and preserves energy resources. The optimal solution to Economic Load Dispatch problems and various constraints can be obtained by evolving several evolutionary and swarm-based algorithms. The major drawback to swarm-based algorithms is premature convergence towards an optimal solution. Fitness Dependent Optimizer is a novel optimization algorithm stimulated by the decision-making and reproductive process of bee swarming. Fitness Dependent Optimizer (FDO) examines the search spaces based on the searching approach of Particle Swarm Optimization. To calculate the pace, the fitness function is utilized to generate weights that direct the search agents in the phases of exploitation and exploration. In this research, the authors have carried out Fitness Dependent Optimizer to solve the Economic Load Dispatch problem by reducing fuel cost, emission allocation, and transmission loss. Moreover, the authors have enhanced a novel variant of Fitness Dependent Optimizer, which incorporates novel population initialization techniques and dynamically employed sine maps to select the weight factor for Fitness Dependent Optimizer. The enhanced population initialization approach incorporates a quasi-random Sabol sequence to generate the initial solution in the multi-dimensional search space. A standard 24-unit system is employed for experimental evaluation with different power demands. Empirical results obtained using the enhanced variant of the Fitness Dependent Optimizer demonstrate superior performance in terms of low transmission loss, low fuel cost, and low emission allocation compared to the conventional Fitness Dependent Optimizer. The experimental study obtained 7.94E-12.Comment: 42 page

An analysis-forecast system for uncertainty modeling of wind speed: A case study of large-scale wind farms

© 2017 Elsevier Ltd The uncertainty analysis and modeling of wind speed, which has an essential influence on wind power systems, is consistently considered a challenging task. However, most investigations thus far were focused mainly on point forecasts, which in reality cannot facilitate quantitative characterization of the endogenous uncertainty involved. An analysis-forecast system that includes an analysis module and a forecast module and can provide appropriate scenarios for the dispatching and scheduling of a power system is devised in this study; this system superior to those presented in previous studies. In order to qualitatively and quantitatively investigate the uncertainty of wind speed, recurrence analysis techniques are effectively developed for application in the analysis module. Furthermore, in order to quantify the uncertainty accurately, a novel architecture aimed at uncertainty mining is devised for the forecast module, where a non-parametric model optimized by an improved multi-objective water cycle algorithm is considered a predictor for producing intervals for each mode component after feature selection. The results of extensive in-depth experiments show that the devised system is not only superior to the considered benchmark models, but also has good potential practical applications in wind power systems

Search-Based Software Maintenance and Testing

2012 - 2013In software engineering there are many expensive tasks that are performed during development and maintenance activities. Therefore, there has been a lot of e ort to try to automate these tasks in order to signi cantly reduce the development and maintenance cost of software, since the automation would require less human resources. One of the most used way to make such an automation is the Search-Based Software Engineering (SBSE), which reformulates traditional software engineering tasks as search problems. In SBSE the set of all candidate solutions to the problem de nes the search space while a tness function di erentiates between candidate solutions providing a guidance to the optimization process. After the reformulation of software engineering tasks as optimization problems, search algorithms are used to solve them. Several search algorithms have been used in literature, such as genetic algorithms, genetic programming, simulated annealing, hill climbing (gradient descent), greedy algorithms, particle swarm and ant colony. This thesis investigates and proposes the usage of search based approaches to reduce the e ort of software maintenance and software testing with particular attention to four main activities: (i) program comprehension; (ii) defect prediction; (iii) test data generation and (iv) test suite optimiza- tion for regression testing. For program comprehension and defect prediction, this thesis provided their rst formulations as optimization problems and then proposed the usage of genetic algorithms to solve them. More precisely, this thesis investigates the peculiarity of source code against textual documents written in natural language and proposes the usage of Genetic Algorithms (GAs) in order to calibrate and assemble IR-techniques for di erent software engineering tasks. This thesis also investigates and proposes the usage of Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithms (MOGAs) in or- der to build multi-objective defect prediction models that allows to identify defect-prone software components by taking into account multiple and practical software engineering criteria. Test data generation and test suite optimization have been extensively investigated as search- based problems in literature . However, despite the huge body of works on search algorithms applied to software testing, both (i) automatic test data generation and (ii) test suite optimization present several limitations and not always produce satisfying results. The success of evolutionary software testing techniques in general, and GAs in particular, depends on several factors. One of these factors is the level of diversity among the individuals in the population, which directly a ects the exploration ability of the search. For example, evolutionary test case generation techniques that employ GAs could be severely a ected by genetic drift, i.e., a loss of diversity between solutions, which lead to a premature convergence of GAs towards some local optima. For these reasons, this thesis investigate the role played by diversity preserving mechanisms on the performance of GAs and proposed a novel diversity mechanism based on Singular Value Decomposition and linear algebra. Then, this mechanism has been integrated within the standard GAs and evaluated for evolutionary test data generation. It has been also integrated within MOGAs and empirically evaluated for regression testing. [edited by author]XII n.s