A non-dominated sorting based customized random-key genetic algorithm for the bi-objective traveling thief problem

Jonatas B.C. Chagas, Julian Blank, Markus Wagner, Marcone J.F. Souza, Kalyanmoy Deb

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer-review

13 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a method to solve a bi-objective variant of the well-studied traveling thief problem (TTP). The TTP is a multi-component problem that combines two classic combinatorial problems: traveling salesman problem and knapsack problem. We address the BI-TTP, a bi-objective version of the TTP, where the goal is to minimize the overall traveling time and to maximize the profit of the collected items. Our proposed method is based on a biased-random key genetic algorithm with customizations addressing problem-specific characteristics. We incorporate domain knowledge through a combination of near-optimal solutions of each subproblem in the initial population and use a custom repair operator to avoid the evaluation of infeasible solutions. The bi-objective aspect of the problem is addressed through an elite population extracted based on the non-dominated rank and crowding distance. Furthermore, we provide a comprehensive study showing the influence of each parameter on the performance. Finally, we discuss the results of the BI-TTP competitions at EMO-2019 and GECCO-2019 conferences where our method has won first and second places, respectively, thus proving its ability to find high-quality solutions consistently.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)267-301
Number of pages35
JournalJournal of Heuristics
Volume27
Issue number3
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jun 2021
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Combinatorial optimization
  • Multi-objective optimization
  • NSGA-II
  • Real-world optimization problem
  • Traveling thief problem

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