Efficient Computation of Probabilistic Dominance in Multi-objective Optimization

Abstract

Real-world problems typically require the simultaneous optimization of multiple, often conflicting objectives. Many of these multi-objective optimization problems are characterized by wide ranges of uncertainties in their decision variables or objective functions. To cope with such uncertainties, stochastic and robust optimization techniques are widely studied aiming to distinguish candidate solutions with uncertain objectives specified by confidence intervals, probability distributions, sampled data, or uncertainty sets. In this scope, this article first introduces a novel empirical approach for the comparison of candidate solutions with uncertain objectives that can follow arbitrary distributions. The comparison is performed through accurate and efficient calculations of the probability that one solution dominates the other in terms of each uncertain objective. Second, such an operator can be flexibly used and combined with many existing multi-objective optimization frameworks and techniques by just substituting their standard comparison operator, thus easily enabling the Pareto front optimization of problems with multiple uncertain objectives. Third, a new benchmark for evaluating uncertainty-aware optimization techniques is introduced by incorporating different types of uncertainties into a well-known benchmark for multi-objective optimization problems. Fourth, the new comparison operator and benchmark suite are integrated into an existing multi-objective optimization framework that features a selection of multi-objective optimization problems and algorithms. Fifth, the efficiency in terms of performance and execution time of the proposed comparison operator is evaluated on the introduced uncertainty benchmark. Finally, statistical tests are applied giving evidence of the superiority of the new comparison operator in terms of \epsilon -dominance and attainment surfaces in comparison to previously proposed approaches.