The development and investigation of the efficiency of the differential evolution algorithm for solving multi-objective optimization problems

In practice problems, which consist in the search of the best (optimal) solution according to the different irredundant and contradictory (conflicting) criteria, called multi-objective problems, are of frequent occurrence. One of the most commonly used methods for solving this kind of problems consists in combination of all criteria into the single one by using some linear relation. However, despite the simplicity of this method, solving problems with its help may cause other problems related to the determination of the mentioned linear combination, namely related to the determination of the weight coefficients for each criterion. The incorrect selection of these coefficients may lead to non-optimal solutions (according to the Pareto theory). In this regard, recently various population-based algorithms have been proposed for solving the described problems, which are the modifications of these population-based algorithms for solving single-objective optimization problems. This article describes the developed modifications of the Differential Evolution algorithm (DE) for solving multi-objective unconstrained optimization problems based on the well-known NSGA (Non-dominated Sorting Genetic Algorithm) and MOEA/D (Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm Based on Decomposition) schemes, which use the Pareto theory. The investigation into the efficiency of the Differential Evolution algorithm for solving multi-objective optimization problems in relation to the chosen mutation operator of the original DE algorithm and to the multi-objective scheme was conducted. The developed modifications were tested by using some well-known multi-objective real-valued optimization problems with 30 variables, such as ZDT1, ZDT2, ZDT3, etc. The practical problem of spacecraft control contour variant choice was solved as well. The experimental results show that better results were achieved by the Differential Evolution algorithm with the simplest mutation operators combined with the NSGA scheme. Thus, the applicability of the described modification for solving practical multi-objective optimization problems was demonstrated.