A new preference handling technique for interactive multiobjective optimization without trading-off

Abstract

Because the purpose of multiobjective optimization methods is to optimize conflicting objectives simultaneously, they mainly focus on Pareto optimal solutions, where improvement with respect to some objective is only possible by allowing some other objective(s) to impair. Bringing this idea into practice requires the decision maker to think in terms of trading-off, which may limit the ability of effective problem solving. We outline some drawbacks of this and exploit another idea emphasizing the possibility of simultaneous improvement of all objectives. Based on this idea, we propose a technique for handling decision maker’s preferences, which eliminates the necessity to think in terms of trade-offs. We incorporate this technique into an interactive trade-off-free method for multiobjective optimization. We call the resulting method NAUTILUS 2, which is also suitable for negotiation support. We demonstrate the applicability of the new method with an example problem.