KnRVEA: A hybrid evolutionary algorithm based on knee points and reference vector adaptation strategies for many-objective optimization

In this paper, a many-objective evolutionary algorithm, named as a hybrid evolutionary algorithm based on knee points and reference vector adaptation strategies (KnRVEA) is proposed. Knee point strategy is used to improve the convergence of solution vectors. In the proposed algorithm, a novel knee adaptation strategy is introduced to adjust the distribution of knee points. KnRVEA is compared with five well-known evolutionary algorithms over thirteen benchmark test functions. The results reveal that the proposed algorithm provides better results than the others in terms of Inverted Generational Distance and Hypervolume. The computational complexity of the proposed algorithm is also analyzed. The statistical testing is performed to show the statistical significance of proposed algorithm. The proposed algorithm is also applied on three real-life constrained many-objective optimization problems to demonstrate its efficiency. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is able to solve many-objective real-life problems.