Constraint Consensus Mutation-Based Differential Evolution for Constrained Optimization

Until now, numerous mutation strategies have been introduced as search operators within the differential evolution (DE) algorithm. These operators are designed mainly to improve fitness value while also maintaining diversity in the population, but they do not directly act to reduce constraint violations of constrained problems. Interestingly, the so-called constraint handling techniques, used with most evolutionary algorithms, are not a part of the actual search process. Instead, the constraint violations are only considered in the ranking and selection of individuals for participation in the search process. This paper introduces a new DE mutation operator that incorporates a mechanism, based on constraint consensus, that can directly help to reduce the constraint violations during the evolutionary search process. The proposed DE algorithm has been tested on a set of well-known constrained benchmark problems. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is able to obtain better solutions, compared to the standard DE algorithm, with significantly reduced computational effort. The algorithm also outperforms state-of-the-art algorithms.