In this paper, we propose a novel adaptive penalty function method for constrained optimization problems using the evolutionary programming technique. This method incorporates an adaptive tuning algorithm that adjusts the penalty parameters according to the population landscape so that it allows fast escape from a local optimum and quick convergence toward a global optimum. The method is simple and computationally effective in the sense that only very few penalty parameters are needed for tuning. Simulation results of five well-known benchmark problems are presented to show the performance of the proposed method.
