Modified Differential Evolution for Constrained Optimization

In this paper, we present a Differential-Evolution based approach to solve constrained optimization problems. The aim of the approach is to increase the probability of each parent to generate a better offspring. This is done by allowing each solution to generate more than one offspring but using a different mutation operator which combines information of the best solution in the population and also information of the current parent to find new search directions. Three selection criteria based on feasibility are used to deal with the constraints of the problem and also a diversity mechanism is added to maintain infeasible solutions located in promising areas of the search space. The approach is tested in a set of test problems proposed for the special session on Constrained Real Parameter Optimization. The results obtained are discussed and some conclusions are established.