Constrained Optimization by the α Constrained Particle Swarm Optimizer

In this study, α constrained particle swarm optimizer αPSO, which is the combination of the α constrained method and particle swarm optimization, is proposed to solve constrained optimization problems. The α constrained methods can convert algorithms for unconstrained problems to algorithms for constrained problems using the α level comparison, which compares the search points based on the satisfaction level of constraints. In the αPSO, the agents who satisfy the constraints move to optimize the objective function and the agents who don't satisfy the constraints move to satisfy the constraints. The effectiveness of the αPSO is shown by comparing the αPSO with GENOCOP5.0, and other PSO-based methods on some nonlinear constrained problems.