A framework of scalable dynamic test problems for dynamic multi-objective optimization

Dynamic multi-objective optimization has received increasing attention in recent years. One of striking issues in this field is the lack of standard test suites to determine whether an algorithm is capable of solving dynamic multi-objective optimization problems (DMOPs). So far, a large proportion of test functions commonly used in the literature have only two objectives. It is greatly needed to create scalable test problems for developing algorithms and comparing their performance for solving DMOPs. This paper presents a framework of constructing scalable dynamic test problems, where dynamism can be easily added and controlled, and the changing Pareto-optimal fronts are easy to understand and their landscapes are exactly known. Experiments are conducted to compare the performance of four state-of-the-art algorithms on several typical test functions derived from the proposed framework, which gives a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of these tested algorithms for scalable DMOPs.