Differential evolution with infeasible-guiding mutation operators for constrained multi-objective optimization

Constrained multi-objective optimization problems (CMOPs) are common in engineering design fields. To solve such problems effectively, this paper proposes a new differential evolution variant named IMDE with infeasible-guiding mutation operators and a multistrategy technique. In IMDE, an infeasible solution with lower objective values is maintained for each individual in the main population, and this infeasible solution is then incorporated into some common differential evolution’s mutation operators to guide the search toward the region with promising objective values. Moreover, multiple mutation strategies and control parameters are adopted during the trial vector generation procedure to enhance both the convergence and the diversity of differential evolution. The superior performance of IMDE is validated via comparisons with some state-of-the-art constrained multi-objective evolutionary algorithms over 3 sets of artificial benchmarks and 4 widely used engineering design problems. The experiments show that IMDE outperforms other algorithms or obtains similar results. It is an effective approach for solving CMOPs, basically due to the use of infeasible-guiding mutation operators and multiple strategies.