A comparative study of algorithms for solving the multiobjective open-pit mining operational planning problems

Abstract

This work presents a comparison of results obtained by different methods for the Multiobjective Open-Pit Mining Operational Planning Problem, which consists of dynamically and efficiently allocating a fleet of trucks with the goal of maximizing the production while reducing the number of trucks in operation, subject to a set of constraints defined by a mathematical model. Three algorithms were used to tackle instances of this problem: NSGA-II, SPEA2 and an ILS-based multiobjective optimizer called MILS. An expert system for computational simulation of open pit mines was employed for evaluating solutions generated by the algorithms. These methods were compared in terms of the quality of the solution sets returned, measured in terms of hyper volume and empirical attainment function (EAF). The results are presented and discussed.