Evolutionary many-objective optimization using ensemble fitness ranking

Abstract

In this paper, a new framework, called ensemble fitness ranking (EFR), is proposed for evolutionary many-objective optimization that allows to work with different types of fitness functions and ensemble ranking schemes. The framework aims to rank the solutions in the population more appropriately by combing the ranking results from many simple individual rankers. As to the form of EFR, it can be regarded as an extension of average and maximum ranking methods which have been shown promising for many-objective problems. The significant change is that EFR adopts more general fitness functions instead of objective functions, which would make it easier for EFR to balance the convergence and diversity in many-objective optimization. In the experimental studies, the influence of several fitness functions and ensemble ranking schemes on the performance of EFR is fist investigated. Afterwards, EFR is compared with two state-of-the-art methods (MOEA/D and NSGA-III) on well-known test problems. The computational results show that EFR significantly outperforms MOEA/D and NSGA-III on most instances, especially for those having a high number of objectives.