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The Importance of Being Constrained: Dealing with Infeasible Solutions in Differential Evolution and Beyond

Anna V. Kononova, Diederick Vermetten, Fabio Caraffini Orcid Logo, Madalina-A. Mitran, Daniela Zaharie

Evolutionary Computation, Volume: 32, Issue: 1, Pages: 3 - 48

Swansea University Author: Fabio Caraffini Orcid Logo

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DOI (Published version): 10.1162/evco_a_00333

Abstract

We argue that results produced by a heuristic optimisation algorithm cannot be considered reproducible unless the algorithm fully specifies what should be done with solutions generated outside the domain, even in the case of simple bound constraints. Currently, in the field of heuristic optimisation...

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Published in: Evolutionary Computation
ISSN: 1063-6560 1530-9304
Published: MIT Press 2024
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URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa63489
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Abstract: We argue that results produced by a heuristic optimisation algorithm cannot be considered reproducible unless the algorithm fully specifies what should be done with solutions generated outside the domain, even in the case of simple bound constraints. Currently, in the field of heuristic optimisation, such specification is rarely mentioned or investigated due to the assumed triviality or insignificance of this question. Here, we demonstrate that, at least in algorithms based on Differential Evolution, this choice induces notably different behaviours in terms of performance, disruptiveness and population diversity. This is shown theoretically (where possible) for standard Differential Evolution in the absence of selection pressure and experimentally for the standard and state-of-the-art Differential Evolution variants, on a special test function and the BBOB benchmarking suite, respectively. Moreover, we demonstrate that the importance of this choice quickly grows with problem's dimensionality. Differential Evolution is not at all special in this regard - there is no reason to presume that other heuristic optimisers are not equally affected by the aforementioned algorithmic choice. Thus, we urge the heuristic optimisation community to formalise and adopt the idea of a new algorithmic component in heuristic optimisers, which we refer to as the strategy of dealing with infeasible solutions. This component needs to be consistently: (a) specified in algorithmic descriptions to guarantee reproducibility of results, (b) studied to better understand its impact on an algorithm's performance in a wider sense (i.e. convergence time, robustness, etc.) and (c) included in the (automatic) design of algorithms. All of these should be done even for problems with bound constraints.
Keywords: Bound constraint, algorithmic behaviour
College: Faculty of Science and Engineering
Issue: 1
Start Page: 3
End Page: 48

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