MILPIBEA: Algorithm for Multi-objective Features Selection in (Evolving) Software Product Lines

Research output: Chapter in Book or Conference Publication/ProceedingConference Publicationpeer-review

5 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Software Product Lines Engineering (SPLE) proposes techniques to model, create and improve groups of related software systems in a systematic way, with different alternatives formally expressed, e.g., as Feature Models. Selecting the ‘best’ software system(s) turns into a problem of improving the quality of selected subsets of software features (components) from feature models, or as it is widely known, Feature Configuration. When there are different independent dimensions to assess how good a software product is, the problem becomes even more challenging – it is then a multi-objective optimisation problem. Another big issue for software systems is evolution where software components change. This is common in the industry but, as far as we know, there is no algorithm designed to the particular case of multi-objective optimisation of evolving software product lines. In this paper we present MILPIBEA, a novel hybrid algorithm which combines the scalability of a genetic algorithm (IBEA) with the accuracy of a mixed-integer linear programming solver (IBM ILOG CPLEX). We also study the behaviour of our solution (MILPIBEA) in contrast with SATIBEA, a state-of-the-art algorithm in static software product lines. We demonstrate that MILPIBEA outperforms SATIBEA on average, especially for the most challenging problem instances, and that MILPIBEA is the one that continues to improve the quality of the solutions when SATIBEA stagnates (in the evolving context).

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationEvolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization - 20th European Conference, EvoCOP 2020, Held as Part of EvoStar 2020, Proceedings
EditorsLuís Paquete, Christine Zarges
PublisherSpringer
Pages164-179
Number of pages16
ISBN (Print)9783030436797
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020
Externally publishedYes
Event20th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization, EvoCOP 2020, held as part of Evostar 2020 - Seville, Spain
Duration: 15 Apr 202017 Apr 2020

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science (including subseries Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence and Lecture Notes in Bioinformatics)
Volume12102 LNCS
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference20th European Conference on Evolutionary Computation in Combinatorial Optimization, EvoCOP 2020, held as part of Evostar 2020
Country/TerritorySpain
CitySeville
Period15/04/2017/04/20

Keywords

  • Evolutionary algorithm
  • Feature selection
  • Mixed-integer linear programming
  • Multi-objective optimisation
  • Software product line

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