Research Paper: A Constraint-Handling Technique for Genetic Algorithms using a Violation Factor

I am very excited to share my first publication in computational intelligence. I began working on the constraint-handling technique in the month of February 2015, as I was trying to find a way to introduce the wind turbine design constraints into my optimization algorithm. Inspired the motif of preserving the core notions of evolution in genetic algorithm by refusing to add a penalty function to the fitness function, I proposed my constraint-handling technique named VCH (Violation Constraint-Handling). 

Authors

Adam Chehouri, Rafic Younes, Adrian Ilinca, Jean Perron 

Abstract 

Over the years, several meta-heuristic algorithms were proposed and are now emerging as common methods for constrained optimization problems. Among them, genetic algorithms (GA's) shine as popular evolutionary algorithms (EA's) in engineering optimization. Most engineering design problems are difficult to resolve with conventional optimization algorithms because they are highly nonlinear and contain constraints. In order to handle these constraints, the most common technique is to apply penalty functions. The major drawback is that they require tuning of parameters, which can be very challenging. In this paper, we present a constraint-handling technique for GA's solely using the violation factor, called VCH (Violation Constraint-Handling) method. Several benchmark problems from the literature are examined. The VCH technique was able to provide a consistent performance and match results from other GA-based techniques.

Acknowledgement 

The authors would like to thank everyone who has contributed to the progress of the research. We thank the anonymous referees for their useful suggestions. Finally, the corresponding author would like thank his loving friends and family, particularly my brother Adel Chehouri and my girlfriend who I love dearly.

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