Abstract:Hybridisation of the multi-objective optimisation algorithm NSGA-II and local search is proposed for water distribution system design. Results obtained with the proposed algorithm are presented for four medium-size water networks taken from the literature. Local search is found to be beneficial for one of the networks in terms of finding new solutions not reported earlier. It is also shown that simply using an external archive to save all non-dominated solutions visited by the population, even without local search, leads to substantial improvement in the non-dominated set produced by the algorithm.
Abstract:Application of the multi-objective particle swarm optimisation (MOPSO) algorithm to design of water distribution systems is described. An earlier MOPSO algorithm is augmented with (a) local search, (b) a modified strategy for assigning the leader, and (c) a modified mutation scheme. For one of the benchmark problems described in the literature, the effect of each of the above features on the algorithm performance is demonstrated. The augmented MOPSO algorithm (called MOPSO+) is applied to five benchmark problems, and in each case, it finds non-dominated solutions not reported earlier. In addition, for the purpose of comparing Pareto fronts (sets of non-dominated solutions) obtained by different algorithms, a new criterion is suggested, and its usefulness is pointed out with an example. Finally, some suggestions regarding future research directions are made.