Extending Lexicase DE for a Multi-Niche Constraint Satisfaction Industrial Design Problem

Multi-Niche Constraint Satisfaction problems are common in applications of evolutionary computation for industrial design, where the optimization algorithm is used as a preparatory step for prototype generation. In this context, we want an optimization algorithm that generates a set of diverse solutions that satisfy multiple design constraints. In this paper, we investigate the use of Lexicase-DE (Lex-DE) an algorithm recently proposed for the Multi-Task optimization problem, to solve a Multi-Niche Constraint Satisfaction problem using a surrogate function from a real world design application. We also attempt to enhance the Lex-DE with two modifications from the niching literature: Multiple Population and Niching Constraints, but our experiments indicate that lexicase selection by itself already provides enough diversity for this particular application.