Using cooperative coevolution in large-scale black-box constraint satisfaction problems

Abstract

Solving constrained large-scale global optimization problems poses a challenging task. In these problems with constraints, when the number of variables is measured in the thousands, when the constraints are presented in the form of a black box, and neither the size nor the configuration of the feasible region is known, it is very difficult to find at least one feasible solution. In general, such a problem of finding a feasible region is known as a constraint satisfaction problem. In this paper, we have extended a well-known benchmark set based on constrained optimization problems up to 1000 variables. We have evaluated the CC-SHADE performance, to tackle constraints in large-scale search space. CC-SHADE merges the power of cooperative coevolution and self-adaptive differential evolution. Our extensive experimental evaluations on a range of benchmark problems demonstrate the strong dependence of the performance of CC-SHADE on the number of individuals and the subcomponent number. The numerical results emphasize the importance of using a cooperative coevolution framework for evolutionary-based approaches compared to conventional methods. All numerical experiments are proven by the Wilcoxon test.