A variable reduction strategy for evolutionary algorithms handling equality constraints

Efficient constraint handling techniques are of great significance when Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) are applied to constrained optimization problems (COPs). Generally, when use EAs to deal with COPs, equality constraints are much harder to satisfy, compared with inequality constraints. In this study, we propose a strategy named equality constraint and variable reduction strategy (ECVRS) to reduce equality constraints as well as variables of COPs. Since equality constraints are always expressed by equations, ECVRS makes use of the variable relationships implied in such equality constraint equations. The essence of ECVRS is it makes some variables of a COP considered be represented and calculated by some other variables, thereby shrinking the search space and leading to efficiency improvement for EAs. Meanwhile, ECVRS eliminates the involved equality constraints that providing variable relationships, thus improves the feasibility of obtained solutions. ECVRS is tested on many benchmark problems. Computational results and comparative studies verify the effectiveness of the proposed ECVRS.