Research Article

Adaptive Operator Portfolio Population Search for Constrained Engineering Design

Authors

Min-Chul Park * Department of Mechanical Design Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Engineering Design (KAIED), Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
Seo-Yeon Kim Department of Mechanical Design Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Engineering Design (KAIED), Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
Alessandro Conti Department of Mechanical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy.
Samar Q. Hassan Department of Industrial Engineering, Jordan University of Science and Technology, Irbid, Jordan.
Pieter J. De Wit Department of Mechanical Engineering, KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium.

https://doi.org/10.22105/opt.v3i4.126

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Abstract

Constrained engineering search can benefit from combining global moves with discrete repair, local feasibility correction and refinement. We study AOPPS, a five-operator population framework with recent-improvement credits and entropy-modulated softmax allocation. The formulation separates admissible-variable repair, penalized comparison and direct feasibility checking, and makes objective-call budgeting explicit. The supplied results describe five engineering test cases and 30 reported runs per case. AOPPS has the lowest displayed mean relative gap on every case. However, the case definitions are abbreviated, the gear-train dimension is inconsistent, the B1 ablation baseline differs from the principal result, and several aggregate statistical outputs require their original input arrays and correction reconstruction. We replace the unsupported finite-population convergence rate with a conditional sublevel-set hitting statement that requires continued feasible search coverage. The contribution is an engineering-oriented operator composition and an inspectable set of reported outcomes; it does not establish improvement below certified optima, universal bandit regret, or verified equal-budget superiority.

Keywords

Adaptive operator selection Constrained engineering search Mixed-integer variables Feasibility assessment Evaluation budgeting

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Published 2026-12-24
Issue Vol. 3 No. 4 (2026): Optimality
Section Articles
Document Type Research Article
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Park, M.-C. ., Kim, S.-Y. ., Conti, A. ., Hassan, S. Q. ., & Wit, P. J. D. . (2026). Adaptive Operator Portfolio Population Search for Constrained Engineering Design. Optimality, 3(4), 374-387. https://doi.org/10.22105/opt.v3i4.126

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