EVOLUTIONARY ALGORITHMS FOR SOLVING QUASI GEOMETRIC PROGRAMMING PROBLEMS

In this paper we introduce an extension of standard geometric programming (GP) problems which we call quasi geometric programming (QGP) problems. The consideration of this particular kind of nonlinear and possibly non smooth optimization problem is motivated by the fact that many engineering problems can be formulated as a QGP. However, solving a QGP remains a difficult task due to its intrinsic non-convex nature. This is why we investigate the possibility of using evolutionary algorithms (EA) for solving a QGP problem. The main idea developed in this paper is to combine evolutionary algorithms with interior point method for efficiently solving QGP problems. An interesting feature of the proposed approach is that it does not need to develop specific program solver and works well with any existing EA and available solver able to solve conventional GP. Some considerations on the robustness issue are also presented. Numerical experiments are used to validate the proposed method.