A multi-objective particle swarm algorithm based on hierarchical clustering reference point maintenance

In multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO), challenges persist, including low diversity in external archives, ambiguous individual optimal choice mechanisms, high sensitivity to parameter settings, and the arduous task of balancing global exploration and local exploitation capabilities. To address these issues, this paper introduces a novel multi-objective particle swarm optimization algorithm named HCRMOPSO. The proposed algorithm innovatively leverages hierarchical clustering based on Ward's linkage to generate the center of mass as reference points, which are then combined with the ideal point and crowding distance. This effectively maintains the external archive, thereby resolving the diversity deficiency commonly found in traditional MOPSO archives. Additionally, HCRMOPSO fuses multiple particles to update the personal best positions. It also adaptively tunes the flight parameters according to the diversity information within each particle's neighborhood, enhancing the algorithm's adaptability. Notably, a new strategy is designed for two specific types of particles, further optimizing the search process. The performance of HCRMOPSO is rigorously evaluated against ten existing algorithms on 22 standard test problems. Experimental results demonstrate that HCRMOPSO outperforms its counterparts on multiple benchmarks, showcasing superior effectiveness in handling multi-objective optimization tasks.