An Optimization Framework of Multiobjective Artificial Bee Colony Algorithm Based on the MOEA Framework

The artificial bee colony (ABC) algorithm has become one of the popular optimization metaheuristics and has been proven to perform better than many state-of-the-art algorithms for dealing with complex multiobjective optimization problems. However, the multiobjective artificial bee colony (MOABC) algorithm has not been integrated into the common multiobjective optimization frameworks which provide the integrated environments for understanding, reusing, implementation, and comparison of multiobjective algorithms. Therefore, a unified, flexible, configurable, and user-friendly MOABC algorithm framework is presented which combines a multiobjective ABC algorithm named RMOABC and the multiobjective evolution algorithms (MOEA) framework in this paper. The multiobjective optimization framework aims at the development, experimentation, and study of metaheuristics for solving multiobjective optimization problems. The framework was tested on the Walking Fish Group test suite, and a many-objective water resource planning problem was utilized for verification and application. The experiment's results showed the framework can deal with practical multiobjective optimization problems more effectively and flexibly, can provide comprehensive and reliable parameters sets, and can complete reference, comparison, and analysis tasks among multiple optimization algorithms.