Application of the Plant Propagation Algorithm and NSGA-II to Multiple Objective Linear Programming

Multiple Objective Linear Programming (MOLP) problems are usually solved by exact methods. However, nature-inspired population based stochastic algorithms such as the plant propagation algorithm are becoming more and more prominent. This paper applies the multiple objective plant propagation algorithm (MOPPA) and nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGA-II) for the first time to MOLP and compares their outcomes with those of prominent exact methods. Computational results from a collection of 51 existing MOLP instances suggests that MOPPA compares favourably with four of the most prominent exact methods namely extended multiple objective simplex algorithm (EMSA), affine scaling interior MOLP algorithm (ASIMOLP), Benson’s outer-approximation algorithm (BOA) and parametric simplex algorithm (PSA), and returns best nondominated points which are of higher quality than those returned by NSGA-II. However, the nondominated points approximated by NSGA-II are evenly distributed across the nondominated front. The methods compare well with the four exact methods especially on the large instances which the exact methods failed to solve even when given generous amounts of computation times.