Evolutionary Algorithm based on the Automata Theory for the Multi-objective Optimization of Combinatorial Problems

This paper states a novel, Evolutionary Metaheuristic Based on the Automata Theory (EMODS) for the multiobjective optimization of combinatorial problems. The proposed algorithm uses the natural selection theory in order to explore the feasible solutions space of a combinatorial problem. Due to this, local optimums are often avoided. Also, EMODS exploits the optimization process from the Metaheuristic of Deterministic Swapping to avoid finding unfeasible solutions. The proposed algorithm was tested using well known multi-objective TSP instances from the TSPLIB. Its results were compared against others Automata Theory inspired Algorithms using metrics from the specialized literature. In every case, the EMODS results on the metrics were always better and in some of those cases, the distance from the true solutions was 0.89%.