Comparison of Constraint-Handling Techniques for Metaheuristic Optimization

Abstract

Many design problems in engineering have highly nonlinear constraints and the proper handling of such constraints can be important to ensure solution quality. There are many different ways of handling constraints and different algorithms for optimization problems, which makes it difficult to choose for users. This paper compares six different constraint-handling techniques such as penalty methods, barrier functions, ϵ -constrained method, feasibility criteria and stochastic ranking. The pressure vessel design problem is solved by the flower pollination algorithm, and results show that stochastic ranking and ϵ -constrained method are most effective for this type of design optimization.