A Dual Mutation Based Evolutionary Algorithm for Dynamic Multi-Objective Optimization With Undetectable Changes

Most of the current research on dynamic multi-objective optimization problems (DMOPs) assumes that environmental changes can be detectable. However, undetectable changes are frequently encountered in real-world applications, which pose a serious challenge for the existing methods. Because undetectable changes can lead to the failure of change detection techniques, thereby making it difficult to adapt to environmental changes for most algorithms. Therefore, to effectively deal with DMOPs with undetectable changes, this work proposes a dual mutation based dynamic multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (DM-DMOEA). The proposed DM-DMOEA incorporates the following two main components. First, based on the exploration level of the population, an adaptive selection strategy is proposed, which enables the adaptive identification of individuals for mutation. Second, a dual mutation scheme is developed, utilizing both the polynomial mutation and the Gaussian mutation. These mutation operations are applied on the selected individuals to generate the mutated individuals, allowing for diverse exploration in the search space. After conducting the above two strategies, the population will evolve by the evolutionary criterion of multi-objective optimization. As a result, the algorithm can effectively adapt to undetectable changes in the environment. Comprehensive empirical studies are conducted on different benchmark functions and a real-world application to evaluate the performance of DM-DMOEA. Experimental results have demonstrated that DM-DMOEA is competitive in tracking the Pareto front over time when facing undetectable changes.