Elitist Non-Dominated Sorting GA-II (NSGA-II) as
a Parameter-less Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm
Khoa Duc Tran
Graduate School of Computer and Information Sciences
Nova Southeastern University
khoa@nova.edu
Abstract
Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are general-purpose heuristic
search algorithms that mimic the evolutionary process in
order to find the fittest solutions. The algorithms were
introduced by Holland in 1975. Since then, they have
received growing interest due to their ability to discover
good solutions quickly for complex searching and
optimization problems. The traditional GAs have been
converted to multi-objective GAs to solve multi-objective
optimization problems successfully. However, GAs require
parameter tunings (such as population size, mutation
probabilities, crossover probabilities, selection rates) in
order to achieve the desirable solutions. The task of tuning
GA parameters has been proven to be far from trivial due
to the complex interactions among the parameters. It takes
trial and error experiments to obtain the optimal GA
parameter settings for an arbitrary real-world problem.
Many researchers have been trying to understand the
interdependencies of GA parameters in order to determine
their optimal settings. The objective of this research is to
develop the elitist non-dominated sorting GA (NSGA-II) for
multi-objective optimization as a parameter-less multi-
objective GA. The research then will evaluate and discuss
the performance of the parameter-less NSGA-II against the
original NSGA-II with optimal parameter settings using the
experiment result on a test problem borrowed from the
literature.
1. Introduction
Multi-objective optimization (also known as multi-
criteria optimization, multi-performance, or vector
optimization) is the task of finding one or more optimum
solutions which would give the values of all the objective
functions acceptable to the decision maker [1], [2], [3].
Thus, multi-objective optimization is a component of a
Decision Support System to assist a practitioner in his
decision-making. Many approaches have been suggested
for solving multi-objective optimization problems: from
naively combining objectives into one, to the use of game
theory to coordinate the relative importance of each
objective [2]. However, these classical approaches can find
only one optimum solution in a single simulation run
instead of a set of good trade-off solutions from which the
decision maker can choose one.
The potential of Genetic Algorithms (GAs) in multi-
objective optimization was initially hinted by Rosenberg in
1960s [4]. However, this research area remained
unexplored until recently it has received a lot of interest [5],
[6], [7]. The reason for this increasing interest because a
GA is capable of finding multiple optimum solutions in one
single run.
However, Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are not easy to use
because they require parameter tunings in order to achieve
the desirable solutions. The task of tuning GA parameters
has been proven to be far from trivial. Many researchers
have been trying to understand the interdependencies of
GA parameters [8], [9]. The parameter-less GA [10], [11]
was recently proposed as a technique to make GAs easier to
use. The objective of this research is to develop the elitist
non-dominated sorting GA (NSGA-II) for multi-objective
optimization [6] as a parameter-less multi-objective GA.
The research then will evaluate and discuss the
performance of the parameter-less NSGA-II against the
original NSGA-II with optimal parameter settings using the
experiment result on a test problem borrowed from the
literature.
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows:
Section 2 presents prior research related to the topic of
parameter setting in GAs and the Fast Elitist Non-
Dominated Sorting GA-II for Multi-Objective
Optimization: NSGA-II. Section 3 presents the modified
version of NSGA-II as a parameter-less NSGA-II. Section
4 describes the test problem with available published
results used to evaluate the parameter-less NSGA-II.
Section 5 presents the experimental results showing the
performance of the parameter-less NSGA-II against the
original NSGA-II and provides some comments. Section 6
suggests the improvements for the parameter-less NSGA-II.
Finally, the paper ends with the summary and conclusion.
2. Prior Research
2.1. Empirical Studies
De Jong [12] conducted one of the first empirical studies
to understand the complex interactions and
interdependencies of GA parameters in his doctoral
dissertation “An analysis of the behavior of a class of
genetic adaptive systems.” Based on his studies, De Jong
introduced a good set of parameter settings that have been
adopted widely and sometimes referred to as “standard”
settings: population size of 50-100, crossover probability of
0.6, and mutation probability of 0.001. However, the
theoretical studies described below have proven these
“standard” settings problematic.
2.2. Theoretical Studies
The theoretical models on population sizing [9], [13]
identifies the shortcomings of the “standard” settings and
suggests that the population size should be proportional to
the problem’s difficulty. These theoretical models are
impractical because they reply on parameters that may not
be available for real-world problems and require knowledge
of GA theoretic concepts and statistics in order to use.
However, the theoretical models provide useful guidelines
for choosing population size parameter. Moreover, these
theoretical models point out that setting the population size
to a fixed value (i.e. in the range of 50 to 100) regardless of
the problem’s difficulty is problematic. Since problem’s
difficulty is usually unknown until solved, in practice users
will have to try a number of population size settings to
guess the right setting. There are two problems associated
with this guessing game: 1) setting the population size not
large enough will cause the GA to converge to sub-optimal
solutions; 2) setting the population size above optimum will
cause the GA to waste unnecessary computational
resources.
The theory of genetic algorithms’ control maps suggests
the guidelines for setting the values of two parameters
selection rate and crossover probability in order to
constitute robust settings [14].
2.3. Parameter Adaptation
Spears [15] applied self-adaptation mechanism for
selecting an optimal crossover operator: uniform crossover
or two-point crossover. In this technique, one bit is
appended to the end of every individual string in the
population (i.e. a ‘1’ is uniform crossover, and a ‘0’ refers
to two-point crossover). All genetic operators can be
applied to these extra bits because this approach is tightly
coupled. Spear pointed out that there are two cases: local
adaptation and global adaptation. In local adaptation, the
last bits of the two chosen individuals are examined to
decide which crossover operator should be applied. If the
two bits are ‘1’s, uniform crossover is applied. If the two
bits are ‘0’s, two-point crossover is used. If the two bits are
different, crossover operator is randomly selected. In global
adaptation, the last bits of the whole population
probabilistically determine which crossover operator is
applied on each individual. For example, if the population
has 75% ‘1’s and 25% ‘0’s in the last bits of individuals
then uniform crossover will be applied 75% of the time,
and two-point crossover will be used 25% of the time. The
technique was tested using a set of n-Peak and
Halmiltonian Circuit problems. The results have shown that
this adaptive crossover operator out-performs non-adaptive
crossover operator especially with large population sizes.
Smith and Smuda [16] introduces an algorithm for
adaptively resizing GA populations. This algorithm
requires users to supply a desired target value for
acceptable selection loss. The algorithm then estimates
schema fitness variances and population sizes so that the
selection loss approximates the users’ loss requirement.
However, there are some limitations with this algorithm.
First, it is hard to match users’ specified selection loss with
the actual accuracy of the GA. Second; the estimation of
schema fitness variances is very noisy because the GA
performs many samples simultaneously. Third, the nearly
perfect building block mixing may not be available in
practice.
2.4. Parameter-less GA
Harik & Lobo [10] proposed a parameter-less genetic
algorithm to make GAs easier to use and available to more
users. Later, Lobo elaborated this idea in his doctoral
dissertation [11]. According to Harik and Lobo, users do
not need to know the GA parameters such as population
sizes, crossover probabilities, mutation probabilities,
selection rates, and other GA parameters in order to use a
GA. Hence; a GA should have no parameters.
Harik & Lobo chose to ignore mutation in the
parameter-less GA for the sake of simplicity. They preset
the selection pressure s and crossover probability pc to fixed
values (s = 4, pc = 0.5) according the schema theorem [17]
in order to ensure building block growth. Using the
schema theorem equation [17], [18], they derived the
expression: s(1 – pc) where s substitutes the term that
accounts for the selection operation, pc substitutes the term
that accounts for the crossover operation, and term that
accounts for the mutation operation is ignored. Thus, by
setting s = 4 and pc = 0.5, the expression gives a net growth
of 2 which ensures the necessary building blocks will grow.
The parameter-less GA selects the right population size by
running multiple populations of various sizes
simultaneously, and eliminating the smaller populations
that have lower average fitness, and the ones that drift.
According to the experimental results on three test
problems: the one-max problem, the noisy one-max
problem, and the bounded deceptive problem [10], [11], the
parameter-less GA is a bit slower than a GA that starts with
optimal parameter settings. However, it takes trial and
error experiments to obtain the optimal parameter settings
for an arbitrary real-world problem.
2.5. Elitist Non-Dominated Sorting GA-II for
Multi-Objective Optimization (NSGA-II)
Deb et al. [6] proposed a fast elitist multi-objective GA
that is able to find much spread solutions over the Pareto-
optimal front and requires low computational requirements
( O(mN2), where m is the number of objectives and N is the
population size). The NSGA-II has the following features:
1) Use elite-preserving operator to preserve and use
previously found best solutions in subsequent
generations;
2) Use the non-dominated sorting concept in GAs [18],
[19];
3) Use the crowded tournament selection operator to
preserve the diversity among non-dominated
solutions in the later stage of the run in order to
obtain a good spread of solutions. In this diversity-
preserving mechanism, if the solutions are on the
same non-dominated front the selection will be
based on their crowding distance which is a
measure of density of solutions in the
neighborhood. The one residing in a less crowded
area (with a larger crowding distance) will be
selected.
According to the experimental results on five test
problems taken from the literature, the NSGA-II has out-
performed the Pareto-Archived Evolution Strategy (PAES)
– another multi-objective EA with the explicit goal of
preserving spread on the non-dominated front [6].
3. Development of the Parameter-less NSGA-
II
As the name implied, the parameter-less NSGA-II has
no parameter making the GA easier to use and available to
more users. The parameter-less NSGA-II integrates the
NSGA-II [6] into the parameter-less GA [10] making the
NSGA-II parameter-less.
3.1. Remove Parameter Settings
As in the parameter-less GA, the parameter-less NSGA-
II has the following settings internally within the algorithm:
1) Ignores mutation for the time being pm = 0;
2) Crossover probability pc = 0.5. This setting enables
the parameter-less NSGA-II works more or less
well on both easy and difficult problems [10];
3) Selection rate s = 4;
4) Population size: parameter-less NSGA-II will run
multiple populations with different population size
simultaneously.
The selection rate however is also ignored because the
parameter-less NSGA-II uses different approach from the
simple GA to create an offspring population. The
parameter-less NSGA-II combines parent population and
previous offspring population to create a combined
population of size 2N. Since all previous and current
population individuals are included in the combined
population, the elitism is preserved. The combined
population is sorted according to non-domination. The new
population is then filled with non-dominated fronts in the
order of their ranking. To fill in the new population with
exactly N individuals, the solutions of the last front is
sorted in descending order using the crowded comparison
operator and the best solutions are chosen to fill up the
remain slots in the new population. The parameter-less
NSGA-II then applies binary tournament selection, and
crossover on the new population and the current population
to produce a new offspring population. Thus, the selection
rate is always equal to the population size N.
As in the NSGA-II, the parameter-less NSGA-II has the
following settings internally within the algorithm:
1) Distribution indices for real-coded crossover
operator ηc = 20;
2) Distribution indices for real-code mutation
operator ηm = 100.
3.2. Establish a Race among Multiple Populations
with a Constant Number of Generations
The first attempt is to let the parameter-less NSGA-II
execute multiple populations with different population sizes
simultaneously with a constant maximum number of
generations equals to 500. The initial population size is set
to 25 and maximum population size is set to 500. Similarly,
to the simple parameter-less GA, the parameter-less
NSGA-II allows the smaller populations more generations
to run. The coordination of the array of populations is
implemented with a counter. Overall, the nth population is
allowed to run 32 times more generations than the n+1th
population. Each time a population yields its execution if
the next population has yet not been created the algorithm
creates a new population twice as large as the previous one
until the maximum population size is reached. Harik and
Lobo [10] point out that the reason for doing this is that the
smaller populations expects to converge faster than the
larger one and the algorithm would terminate with a proper
population size. On the other hand, if at any point in time, a
larger population has an average fitness better than that of a
smaller population then the algorithm would stop running
the smaller population because it is very unlikely that the
smaller population would produce better solutions than the
larger one.
However, it turns out that this concept does not work
quite well for MOEAs because most MOEAs assign each
solution a fitness equal to its a non-domination rank (1 is
the best rank, 2 is the next best rank and so on) and all
solutions in the first non-dominated front (or rank) have the
same fitness [1]. Hence, there is no discrimination to any
of these solutions [20]. Therefore, there is no simple way
to determine the better solutions between two populations.
As the result of this, the parameter-less NSGA-II defines
the convergence and fitness of a population with the
following property:
Convergent property
1) The number of solutions in the first non-dominated
front is equal to the population size N;
2) All solutions in the first non-dominated front have
 no constraint errors (for constrained problems).
To determine the better solutions between two
populations, the following criteria is naively defined:
Better Solutions Condition
Population P1 has better solutions than population P2 if
P1 has converged and P1 has more solutions in the first non-
dominated front than that of P2, and P1 has executed for
number of generations less than or equal to that of P2.
The main loop of the parameter-less NSGA-II is
described as below:
pc=0.5; pm=0.0; ηc=20; ηm=10; s = 4
Pop : array of 100 populations
Counter : base 32 on 100
Do
// which population to run?
ix = get Counter
If Pop[ix] exists
// run NSGA-II for one generation
Run Pop[ix] for 1 generation
Else
If max population size reached
// do not create new population
Reset Counter
// continue running existing populations
Continue
Else
// new population with population size
// N =2 * population size of Pop[ix-1]
// and filled with random individuals
Pop[ix] = new population
EndIf
EndIf
If Pop[ix] converges
For ii = 0 to ix-1 do
Kill Pop[ii] // kill smaller populations
EndFor
EndIf
For ii = 0 to ix-1 do
// according to the above definition
If Pop[ix] has better solutions than Pop[ii]
Kill Pop[ii]
EndIf
// according to the above definition
If Pop[ii] has better solutions than Pop[ix]
// smaller population has better solutions
found_best_ever_solutions = true
break // the loop
EndIf
EndFor
increase Counter
Until found_best_ever_solutions or all populations converge
Print out the solutions
It has been observed that the code to find better
solutions among populations has never reached because the
larger populations always catch up with the smaller ones
with more solutions in the first non-dominated front. The
last population with the maximum population size always
wins the race and runs until maximum number of
generations reached. Therefore, the technique does not
work for the parameter-less NSGA-II.
3.3. Establish a Race among Multiple Populations
with Increasing Number of Generations
The test results on the original NSGA-II (see Table 2)
has shown that as the population size is increased and the
maximum number of generations is kept constant, the
performance declines. This result confirms Krishnakumar’s
work [21]. The second attempt is to increase the maximum
number of generations for each population proportionately
with its population size (10*N). Each population is allowed
to run until it converges and the solutions are printed out to
files. The convergent property is modified as below:
Convergent property
1) The number of solutions in the first non-dominated
front is equal to the population size N;
2) All solutions in the first non-dominated front have
no constraint errors (for constrained problems).
The main loop of the parameter-less NSGA-II is
modified as below:
pc=0.5; pm=0.0; ηc=20; ηm=10; s = 4
Pop : array of 100 populations
Counter : base 32 on 100
Do
// which population to run?
ix = get Counter
If Pop[ix] exists
// run NSGA-II for 1 generation
Run Pop[ix] for 1 generation
Else
If max population size reached
// do not create new population
Reset Counter
// continue running existing populations
Continue
Else
// new population with population size
// N = 2 * population size of Pop[ix-1] and
// max. number of generations = 10*N
// and filled with random individuals
Pop[ix] = new population
EndIf
EndIf
If Pop[ix] converges
Print out the solutions
For ii = 0 to ix-1 do
// kill smaller populations
Kill Pop[ii]
EndFor
EndIf
For ii = 0 to ix-1 do
// according to the above definition
If Pop[ix] has better solutions than Pop[ii]
Kill Pop[ii]
EndIf
// according to the above definition
If Pop[ii] has better solutions than Pop[ix]
// smaller population has better solutions
found_best_ever_solutions = true
break // the loop
EndIf
EndFor
increase Counter
Until found_best_ever_solutions or all populations converge
Print out the solutions
Again, the code to find better solutions has never
reached because the larger populations always catch up
with the smaller ones with more solutions in the first non- carried out and it produces the same result as depicted in
dominated front. However, in this modified version, the Figure 1. Five more experiments are performed with
parameter-less NSGA-II runs each population until it different settings for population size and maximum number
converges according to the modified convergent property of generations. Table 2 presents the summary of these
above and it prints the solutions to files. The algorithm runs experimental results.
until it finishes with the last population (population with the Table 2
maximum population size), or the user is happy with the Summary of experimental results with NSGA-II on
solutions quality and stops the program. This approach the constrained multi-objective test problem used
mimics what the user typically does in trial and error in this study (pc=0.9; pm=0.5; ηc=20; ηm=100)
experiments to find the optimal parameter settings, except Population Max. Comments Plotting
Size (N) Number of
this time, the parameter-less NSGA-II is doing it in a Generations
systematic way. 100 500 Wide spread of solutions Fig. 1
As population size is increased and max.
500 500 number of generations is constant, performance Fig. 2
4. Test Problem declines.
As population size is increased and max.
1500 500 number of generations is constant, performance Fig. 3
The test problem used in this study is a constrained declines.
multi-objective problem which was originally suggested by As population size is increased and max.
Tanaka, Watanabe, Furukawa, & Tantrio [22] and used by 1500 1500 number of generations is also increased, NSGA- Fig. 4
II is able to find good solutions.
Deb et al. [6] to test the NSGA-II. The Pareto-optimal With larger number of generations yields
100 1500 Fig. 5
region for this problem is discontinuous and falls entirely better solutions.
the first constraint boundary [6]. The results for this test Number of generations is larger than needed,
100 3000 Fig. 6
thus computing resource is wasted.
problem are published in both papers. The problem is given
in the Table 1 below.
Table 1
The constrained multi-objective test problem used
in this study
Number Variable Minimize Constraints
of bounds Objective
Variables functions
(m = 2)
x
g 1 ( x ) = − x 12 − x 22 + 1 + 0 . 1 cos( 16 arctan ) ≤ 0
xi ∈ [0, f1(x) = x1 y
2
π] f2(x) = x2
g 2 ( x ) = ( x1 − 0 .5 ) + ( x 2 − 0 .5 ) ≤ 0 .5
2 2

5. Experimental Results Figure 1. Obtained non-dominated solutions with

NSGA-II on the test problem (parameter settings:
This section presents the experimental results and N=100; pc=0.9; pm=0.5; ηc=20; ηm=100; max.
comments on the performance of the parameter-less generations=500).
NSGA-II on the test problem. First, the experiments are
performed on the original NSGA-II in order to understand
the behavior of this algorithm on the test problem. Second,
the experiments are performed on the parameter-less
NSGA-II. Finally, the section presents comments on the
performance of the parameter-less NSGA-II against the
original NSGA-II.

5.1. Experimental Results with the Original

NSGA-II

This section presents the experiments performed on the

original NSGA-II in order to understand the behavior of
this algorithm on the test problem. Deb et al. [6] use a Figure 2. Obtained non-dominated solutions with
population size (N) of 100, crossover probability (pc) of 0.9, NSGA-II on the test problem (parameter settings:
mutation probability (pm) of 0.5, distribution indices for N=500; pc=0.9; pm=0.5; ηc=20; ηm=100; max.
real-coded crossover and mutation operators (ηc and ηm) of generations=500).
20 and 100, respectively, and run the NSGA-II (real-coded)
for a maximum of 500 generations. The same experiment is
Figure 3. Obtained non-dominated solutions with Figure 6. Obtained non-dominated solutions with
NSGA-II on the test problem (parameter settings: NSGA-II on the test problem (parameter settings:
N=1500; pc=0.9; pm=0.5; ηc=20; ηm=100; max. N=100; pc=0.9; pm=0.5; ηc=20; ηm=100; max.
generations=500). generations=3000).

5.2 Experimental Results with Parameter-less

NSGA-II

The experiments with the parameter-less NSGA-II run

multiple populations simultaneously with the initial
population size is set to 25 and maximum population size is
set to 500. Each population has a maximum number of
generations equals to 10*N. These settings are coded
internally within the algorithm. Each population runs until
it converges. Table 3 presents the summary of these
experimental results.
Table 3
Figure 4. Obtained non-dominated solutions with Summary of experimental results with parameter-
NSGA-II on the test problem (parameter settings: less NSGA-II on the constrained multi-objective
N=1500; pc=0.9; pm=0.5; ηc=20; ηm=100; max. test problem used in this study
generations=1500). Population Max. Comments Plotting
Size (N) Number of
Generations
The population size is too small for a
25 250 complex problem therefore the algorithm Fig. 7
cannot find the solutions
The performance starts to improve as population
50 500 Fig. 8
size is increased
Good enough solutions are found. The NSGA-II
100 1000 obtains better solutions with the same population Fig. 9
size running for 500 generations
Solutions are refined but two boundary solutions
200 2000 fall within constraint boundary of value less than Fig. 10
1
Solutions are more refined but two boundary
solutions fall within constraint boundary of
400 4000 Fig. 11
value less than 1. The GA wastes computational
resources
Solutions are more refined with one boundary
Figure 5. Obtained non-dominated solutions with 500 5000
solution falls within constraint boundary of
Fig. 12
NSGA-II on the test problem (parameter settings: value less than 1. The GA wastes computational
resources
N=100; pc=0.9; pm=0.5; ηc=20; ηm=100; max.
generations=1500).
Figure 7. Obtained non-dominated solutions with Figure 10. Obtained non-dominated solutions with
parameter-less NSGA-II on the test problem (when parameter-less NSGA-II on the test problem (when
N=25 is reached at max. generations=250). N=200 is reached at max. generations=2000).

Figure 8. Obtained non-dominated solutions with Figure 11. Obtained non-dominated solutions with
parameter-less NSGA-II on the test problem (when parameter-less NSGA-II on the test problem (when
N=50 is reached at max. generations=500). N=400 is reached at max. generations=4000).

Figure 9. Obtained non-dominated solutions with Figure 12. Obtained non-dominated solutions with
parameter-less NSGA-II on the test problem (when Parameter-less NSGA-II on the test problem (when
N=100 is reached at max. generations=1000). N=500 is reached at max. generations=5000).

5.3 Comments on Experimental Results

The parameter-less NSGA-II performs quite well

compare to the original NSGA-II. The parameter-less
NSGA-II is able to obtain a good set of 100 non-dominated
solutions after 1000 generations while the original NSGA-
II can find better distribution set of solutions after 500
generations. The boundary solutions found by the
parameter-less NSGA-II have a tendency to fall within
constraint boundary of value less than 1 because the
algorithm ignores mutation. During the latter stages of the
run, it is likely that most solutions in the population lie in
the first non-dominated front; therefore, a small mutation
probability could be use to maintain diversity in the
population. The parameter-less NSGA-II has been tested
with a small mutation probability (0.001) and it yields
better results, which the boundary solutions found spread
beyond the constraint boundary of value greater than 1.
It has been observed that the distribution of solutions
gets better with generations. Deb [1] points out that when
the entire population converges to the Pareto-optimal front,
the continuation of crowding distance sorting ensures a
better spread among the solutions. Therefore, both the
original NSGA-II and the parameter-less NSGA-II run a
population until the maximum number of generations
reached. This approach introduces genetic drift when the
population has already converged to Pareto-optimal front
with diversity of non-dominated solutions. Genetic drift
occurs when the algorithm cannot discriminate between
two or more distinct solutions. The roaming around of the
population is called drift and this condition will cause the
algorithm to waste unnecessary computational resources.
6. Improvements
It is necessary to stop the population from running as
soon as the population converges to Pareto-optimal front
with diversity of non-dominated solutions. This would
prevent the algorithm from wasting unnecessary
computational resources. To achieve this a performance
metric can be integrated into the parameter-less NSGA-II to
measure the quality of the obtained solutions. There are two
different measures: measure the extent of convergence to a
known set of Pareto-optimal solutions and measure the
extent of diversity among the obtained solutions [6]. The
first metric requires a known set of Pareto-optimal
solutions therefore it cannot be used for any arbitrary
problem. Deb et al. [6] use the following metric to compute
the non-uniformity in the distribution:
_ solutions. Moreover, it has been observed that the larger
∑
N −1
d + dl + |di − d |
∆ = i =1
f
_
d f + d l + ( N − 1) d
(1)
Here, the parameter df and dl are the Euclidean distance
between the extreme solutions and the boundary solutions
of the obtained non-dominated set. The parameter d is the
average of all distance di, where i = 1, 2, … , (N – 1),
assuming that there are N solutions on the first non-
dominated front. For the most widely and uniformly spread
out set of non-dominated solutions, the value of ∆ is zero.
According to Deb et al., this diversity metric can be used on
any set of solutions. Therefore, the parameter-less NSGA-II
can use this metric to measure the quality of the obtained
solutions. If the value of ∆ falls within a certain threshold
the algorithm can stop running the population. Likewise,
the parameter-less NSGA-II can use the metric to
determine the better solutions between two populations in
order to terminate with a proper population size.
Another improvement would be integrating mutation
into the parameter-less NSGA-II adaptively to get better
results. For example, use high mutation probability for
smaller populations and use very low mutation probability
when there are N solutions in the first non-dominated front.
7. Summary and Conclusion
This paper presented the development of the parameter-
less NSGA-II that removes the need of parameters to make
GAs easier to use and to free users from the task of
selecting and tuning GA parameters. There has been
increasing interest in the use of GAs in multi-objective
optimization recently because a GA is capable of finding
multiple optimum solutions in one single run. However,
GA's are not easy to use because they require parameter
tunings in order to achieve the desirable solutions. There
has been a lot of research related to the topic of parameter
setting in GAs. This research integrates the parameter-less
GA approach into a successful MOEA named NSGA-II.
The parameter-less NSGA-II is a crossover-based multi-
objective based GA which use a crossover probability pc =
0.5. This setting enables the parameter-less NSGA-II works
more or less well on both easy and difficult problems. The
elitism approach used in the parameter-less NSGA-II also
ignores the selection rate. Regarding the population size,
the first attempt is to let the parameter-less NSGA-II
executes multiple populations with different population
sizes simultaneously with a constant maximum number of
generation equals to 500 with hope that the smaller
populations would converge faster than the larger one and
the algorithm would terminate with a proper population
size. However, it turns out that this concept does not work
quite well for MOEAs because most MOEAs assign each
solution a fitness equal to its a non-domination rank and all
solutions in the first non-dominated front have the same
fitness. Hence, there is no discrimination to any of these
populations always catch up with the smaller ones with
more solutions in the first non-dominated front. The second
attempt makes a compromise by letting the parameter-less
NSGA-II executes multiple populations with different
population sizes simultaneously with increasing maximum
number of generations proportionately with its population
size (10*N). This would allow larger populations enough
number of generations to converge to quality solutions. The
parameter-less NSGA-II runs each population until it
converges and it prints the solutions to files, or the user is
happy with the solutions quality and stops the program.
This approach mimics what the user typically does in trial
and error experiments to find the optimal parameter
settings, except this time, the parameter-less NSGA-II is
doing it in a systematic way.
The parameter-less NSGA-II performs quite well
compare to the original NSGA-II on a difficult test problem
borrowed from the literature. As expected, it is a bit slower
than the original NSGA-II. However, it takes trial and error
experiments to obtain the optimal parameter settings for an
arbitrary real-world problem. Two improvements are
proposed. A performance metric can be integrated into the
parameter-less NSGA-II to measure the quality of the
obtained solutions. The algorithm can use the metric to
prevent genetic drift and to determine the better solutions
between two populations in order to terminate with a proper
population size. Mutation can be integrated into the
algorithm adaptively to get better results.
8. References
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