Evolutionary Algorithms for Multi-Objective Optimization: Performance Assessments and Comparisons

Evolutionary techniques for multi-objective(MO) optimization are currently gainingsignificant attention from researchers invarious fields due to their effectiveness androbustness in searching for a set of trade-offsolutions. Unlike conventional methods thataggregate multiple attributes to form acomposite scalar objective function,evolutionary algorithms with modifiedreproduction schemes for MO optimization arecapable of treating each objective componentseparately and lead the search in discoveringthe global Pareto-optimal front. The rapidadvances of multi-objective evolutionaryalgorithms, however, poses the difficulty ofkeeping track of the developments in this fieldas well as selecting an existing approach thatbest suits the optimization problem in-hand.This paper thus provides a survey on variousevolutionary methods for MO optimization. Manywell-known multi-objective evolutionaryalgorithms have been experimented with andcompared extensively on four benchmark problemswith different MO optimization difficulties.Besides considering the usual performancemeasures in MO optimization, e.g., the spreadacross the Pareto-optimal front and the abilityto attain the global trade-offs, the paper alsopresents a few metrics to examinethe strength and weakness of each evolutionaryapproach both quantitatively and qualitatively.Simulation results for the comparisons areanalyzed, summarized and commented.