Date of Award

3-1999

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Department

Department of Operational Sciences

First Advisor

Raymond R. Hill, Jr. PhD

Abstract

Meta-heuristics have been deployed to solve many hard combinatorial and optimization problems. Parameterization of meta-heuristics is an important challenging aspect of meta-heuristic use since many of the features of these algorithms cannot be explained theoretically. Experiences with Genetic Algorithms (GA) applied to Multidimensional Knapsack Problems (MKP) have shown that this class of algorithm is very sensitive to parameterization. Many studies use standard test problems, which provide a firm basis for study comparisons but ignore the effect of problem correlation structure. This thesis applies GA to MKP. A new random repair operator, which projects infeasible solutions into feasible region, is proposed. This GA application is tested with synthetic test problems, which map possible correlation structures as well as possible slackness settings. Effect of correlation structure on solution quality found both statistically and practically significant. Depending on the Response Surface Methodology design, proposed is a GA parameter setting which is robust in both solution quality and computation time.

AFIT Designator

AFIT-GOR-ENS-99M-05

DTIC Accession Number

ADA361725

Comments

The author’s Vita page is omitted.

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