Including preferences into a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm to deal with many-objective engineering optimization problems

In this paper, we introduce a new preference relation based on a reference point approach. This relation offers an easy approach to integrate decision maker's preferences into a MOEA without modifying its basic structure. Besides finding the optimal solution of the achievement scalarizing function, the new preference relation allows the decision maker to find a set of solutions around that optimal solution. Then, a MOEA equipped with the proposed preference relation can be integrated into an interactive optimization method. One of the main advantages of the new method is that setting its parameters is an intuitive task to the decision maker. The other advantage is that, since our preference relation induces a finer order on vectors of objective space than that achieved by the Pareto dominance relation, it is appropriate to cope with problems having a high number of objectives. We evaluated the proposed preference relation an engineering problem, the optimization of an airfoil design with 6 objectives.