A multiobjective interactive sequential hybrid optimization technique for design decision making

The paper proposes an interactive method for obtaining a solution to a multiple objective design decision making problem. The focus is on generating Pareto solutions including those that are in the non-convex region, and are desirable to obtain in an engineering design context. After the generation of a small subset of the Pareto solutions, the designer's feedback is elicited in order to eliminate part of the subset. The process is repeated until it iteratively narrows down the Pareto solution set to a size small enough so that the designer is able to easily select a final solution. The advantage of this approach is that the designer can view a few sample points from the Pareto set before zooming into the region preferred and without expending computation time in generating a complete Pareto set. The process has been demonstrated with the help of an example, the design of a fleet of ships, that has mixed-discrete variables and hence a genetic algorithm is used as the optimizer.