A Cooperative Co-evolutionary Method with Consistency Coordination Mechanisms and its Application to Complex Layout Problem
Junzhou Huo, Chen Jing, Xu Zhang
Progress in Computing Applications, Vol. 5, No. 1, 2016.
DOI: 
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Abstract:
Complex spatial layout design problems contain mutual conflicting objectives and constraints. These types
of problems can be divided into several layout sub-problems based on their structure or assemble component. The main
difficulties in solving these problems lie in combinational explosion of computational complexity, engineering complexity,
and pragmatic approaches in engineering practice. Recently, cooperative co-evolutionary algorithms (CCEA) have
proven to be an efficient way to solve complex engineering problems. CCEAs decompose the problem into several subproblems
using a cooperative co-evolutionary multi-population architecture. Based on the framework of CCEA, this
paper presents a cooperative co-evolutionary method with consistency coordination mechanisms for a complex layout
design problem. This method extracts objectives from all technical requirements by analyzing the nonlinear coupling
relations among the sub-problems. The method then coordinates consistency among the sub-populations during a coevolution
process, and ensures all sub-populations converge on a global consistency objective. Compared with a
traditional CCEA method, results show that the proposed method can improve the computational accuracy of solutions.
The proposed consistency coordination mechanisms can better reduce the conflicting of the sub-populations and make
all the sub-populations sustained coevolve within short runtime.