Runtime Analysis of Single- and Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms for Chance Constrained Optimization Problems with Normally Distributed Random Variables

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Neumann, Frank, Witt, Carsten
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2021
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author Neumann, Frank
Witt, Carsten
author_facet Neumann, Frank
Witt, Carsten
contents Chance constrained optimization problems allow to model problems where constraints involving stochastic components should only be violated with a small probability. Evolutionary algorithms have been applied to this scenario and shown to achieve high quality results. With this paper, we contribute to the theoretical understanding of evolutionary algorithms for chance constrained optimization. We study the scenario of stochastic components that are independent and normally distributed. Considering the simple single-objective (1+1) EA, we show that imposing an additional uniform constraint already leads to local optima for very restricted scenarios and an exponential optimization time. We therefore introduce a multi-objective formulation of the problem which trades off the expected cost and its variance. We show that multi-objective evolutionary algorithms are highly effective when using this formulation and obtain a set of solutions that contains an optimal solution for any possible confidence level imposed on the constraint. Furthermore, we prove that this approach can also be used to compute a set of optimal solutions for the chance constrained minimum spanning tree problem. In order to deal with potentially exponentially many trade-offs in the multi-objective formulation, we propose and analyze improved convex multi-objective approaches. Experimental investigations on instances of the NP-hard stochastic minimum weight dominating set problem confirm the benefit of the multi-objective and the improved convex multi-objective approach in practice.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2109_05799
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publishDate 2021
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Runtime Analysis of Single- and Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms for Chance Constrained Optimization Problems with Normally Distributed Random Variables
Neumann, Frank
Witt, Carsten
Neural and Evolutionary Computing
Chance constrained optimization problems allow to model problems where constraints involving stochastic components should only be violated with a small probability. Evolutionary algorithms have been applied to this scenario and shown to achieve high quality results. With this paper, we contribute to the theoretical understanding of evolutionary algorithms for chance constrained optimization. We study the scenario of stochastic components that are independent and normally distributed. Considering the simple single-objective (1+1) EA, we show that imposing an additional uniform constraint already leads to local optima for very restricted scenarios and an exponential optimization time. We therefore introduce a multi-objective formulation of the problem which trades off the expected cost and its variance. We show that multi-objective evolutionary algorithms are highly effective when using this formulation and obtain a set of solutions that contains an optimal solution for any possible confidence level imposed on the constraint. Furthermore, we prove that this approach can also be used to compute a set of optimal solutions for the chance constrained minimum spanning tree problem. In order to deal with potentially exponentially many trade-offs in the multi-objective formulation, we propose and analyze improved convex multi-objective approaches. Experimental investigations on instances of the NP-hard stochastic minimum weight dominating set problem confirm the benefit of the multi-objective and the improved convex multi-objective approach in practice.
title Runtime Analysis of Single- and Multi-Objective Evolutionary Algorithms for Chance Constrained Optimization Problems with Normally Distributed Random Variables
topic Neural and Evolutionary Computing
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2109.05799