Abstract
With their complexity and vast search space, large-scale multiobjective optimization problems (LSMOPs) challenge existing multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). Recently, several large-scale multiobjective evolutionary algorithms have been developed to tackle LSMOPs. Unlike conventional MOEAs that concentrate on selection operations in the objective space, large-scale MOEAs emphasize operations in the decision space, such as offspring generation, to tackle the large number of decision variables. Nevertheless, most present large-scale MOEAs experience difficulty effectively and efficiently solving LSMOPs with tens of thousands or more decision variables or exhibit poor versatility in solving different LSMOPs. We propose a fast large-scale MOEA framework with reference-guided offspring generation, named FLEA, aiming at these issues. Generally, FLEA constructs several reference vectors in the decision space to steer the sampling of promising solutions during offspring generation. A parameter is used to allocate computation resources between the convergence and diversity of the offspring population adaptively. Without computationally expensive problem reformulation or decision variable analysis techniques, the proposed method can significantly accelerate the search speed of conventional MOEAs in solving LSMOPs. FLEA is examined on various LSMOPs with up to 1.6 million decision variables, demonstrating its superior effectiveness, efficiency, and versatility in large-scale multiobjective optimization.