A competitive mechanism integrated multi-objective whale optimization algorithm with differential evolution q

In this paper, a competitive mechanism integrated whale optimization algorithm (CMWOA) is proposed to deal with multi-objective optimization problems. By introducing the novel competitive mechanism, a better leader can be generated for guiding the update of whale population, which benefits the convergence of the algorithm. It should also be highlighted that in the competitive mechanism, an improved calculation of crowding distance is adopted which substitutes traditional addition operation with multiplication operation, providing a more accurate depiction of population density. In addition, differential evolution (DE) is concatenated to diversify the population, and the key parameters of DE have been assigned different adjusting strategies to further enhance the overall performance. Proposed CMWOA is evaluated comprehensively on a series of benchmark functions with different shapes of true Pareto front. Results demonstrate that proposed CMWOA outperforms other three methods in most cases regarding several performance indicators. Particularly, influences of model parameters have also been discussed in detail. At last, proposed CMWOA is successfully applied to three real world problems, which further verifies the practicality of proposed algorithm. CO 2020 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The paper proposes a competitive mechanism integrated whale optimization algorithm (CMWOA) for multi-objective optimization problems. By introducing a novel competitive mechanism and improving the calculation of crowding distance, the convergence and accuracy of the algorithm are enhanced. Additionally, concatenating differential evolution (DE) into the population with different adjusting strategies for key parameters further improves the overall performance.