A Comparison of Benson’s Outer Approximation Algorithm with an Extended Version of Multiobjective Simplex Algorithm

The multiple objective simplex algorithm and its variants work in the decision variable space to find the set of all efficient extreme points of multiple objective linear programming (MOLP). Other approaches to the problem find either the entire set of all efficient solutions or a subset of them and also return the corresponding objective values (nondominated points). This paper presents an extension of the multiobjective simplex algorithm (MSA) to generate the set of all nondominated points and no redundant ones. This extended version is compared to Benson’s outer approximation (BOA) algorithm that also computes the set of all nondominated points of the problem. Numerical results on nontrivial MOLP problems show that the total number of nondominated points returned by the extended MSA is the same as that returned by BOA for most of the problems considered.

Partially distributed outer approximation

This paper presents a novel partially distributed outer approximation algorithm, named PaDOA, for solving a class of structured mixed integer convex programming problems to global optimality. The proposed scheme uses an iterative outer approximation method for coupled mixed integer optimization problems with separable convex objective functions, affine coupling constraints, and compact domain. PaDOA proceeds by alternating between solving large-scale structured mixed-integer linear programming problems and partially decoupled mixed-integer nonlinear programming subproblems that comprise much fewer integer variables. We establish conditions under which PaDOA converges to global minimizers after a finite number of iterations and verify these properties with an application to thermostatically controlled loads and to mixed-integer regression.

A comparative study of two key algorithms in multiple objective linear programming

Multiple objective linear programming problems are solved with a variety of algorithms. While these algorithms vary in philosophy and outlook, most of them fall into two broad categories: those that are decision space-based and those that are objective space-based. This paper reports the outcome of a computational investigation of two key representative algorithms, one of each category, namely the parametric simplex algorithm which is a prominent representative of the former and the primal variant of Bensons Outer-approximation algorithm which is a prominent representative of the latter. The paper includes a procedure to compute the most preferred nondominated point which is an important feature in the implementation of these algorithms and their comparison. Computational and comparative results on problem instances ranging from small to medium and large are provided.