GANet XL Evolutionary Optimisation for Microsoft Excel J

GANet. XL Evolutionary Optimisation for Microsoft Excel J. Bicik, M. S. Morley, E. C. Keedwell & D. A. Savić

Presentation Outline § General description § Structure & features of the application § Definition of the optimisation problem § Live demonstration § Software & hardware requirements § Getting GANet. XL § Future work 23 February 2007 2

Description § A user friendly add-in which integrates into Microsoft Excel § Uses evolutionary algorithms to solve complex optimisation problems § Interacts with Excel using COM interface 23 February 2007 3

Existing Tools • Evolver 4. 0 (Palisade) • Premium Solver Platform (Frontline Systems Inc. ) • Opt. Works Excel (Pi Blue) • Gene. Hunter (Ward Systems) • Generator (New. Light Industries, Ltd. ) • xl bit (XLPert Enterprise) • Gen. Sheet (Inductive Solutions, Inc. )

Motivation • The commercial software does not support multi-objective (MO) optimisation • Use of existing GA library – Flexibility – Extensibility • To let students get in touch with GAs • Simple use • Save money on buying software licenses

History • GA Excel add-in (2003) by F. Zheng – written in Pascal – Single Objective Genetic Algorithms • Genet. XL (2004) – written in C++ – GA Library in Pascal – SOGA + MOGA (NSGA-II) • GANet. XL (2007) – written purely in C++

Structure of GANet. XL 23 February 2007 7

List of Features • Single and multiple-objective optimisation techniques • Support for integration with simulation packages • Suspend, resume • Multiple-objective results browser • Batch runs • User defined constraints & penalty multipliers

Features - Continued § Automatic saving of population § Backups of intermediate population § Visualisation of results and progress § Built-in help § User manual 23 February 2007 9

Defining the Problem § Decision variables – Genes altered by GA within their ranges (x 1, x 2, x 3, x 4) must occupy continuous range § Objective function(s) used to evaluate the fitness of solutions (formula in C 6) § Constraints used to limit values of objective function(s) (formula in C 8) 23 February 2007 10

Practical Examples 1. Single-objective – optimisation of an advertising campaing 2. Multiple-objective – optimisation of an advertising campaing 3. Link with simulation software – optimisation of the “NY tunnels” problem 4. Benchmark – Zitzler test T 1 5. Another multiple-objective example – demonstration of population backups 23 February 2007 11

Supported Platforms • Microsoft Windows – Vista (not tested but should work) – XP – 2000 • Microsoft Excel – 2010 – 2007 – 2003 – XP – 2000

New features of Excel 2007 § Supports multi-core CPUs § The max. number of columns: – extended from 256 to 16, 384 § The max. number of rows: – extended from 65, 536 to 1, 048, 576 § Total amount of PC memory that Excel can use: – extended from 1 GB to maximum allowed by Windows 23 February 2007 13

Licensing • Licenses are bound to specific computer Registration + HW Identifier Registration Details Serial Number Serial No. • Serial number – contains expiration date – valid for limited number of days – chromosome size, population size – objectives count, generations count

Getting GANet. XL Download GANet. XL from following site: http: //www. exeter. ac. uk/cws/ganetxl To obtain a license please follow the installation instructions: http: //centres. exeter. ac. uk/cws/technolo gy/ganetxl-addin/ganetxl-installation Support, reporting bugs and problems: Josef Bicik (j. bicik@exeter. ac. uk) 23 February 2007 15

Future Work • Add more multiple-objective algorithms – MO Simulated Annealing – ε-NSGA II • Make the application multi-threaded • Visualisation of more than 2 objectives • Do more testing of the application Any other ideas?

Thank you for your attention! Questions & Discussion

Links • Evolver 4. 0 (Palisade) http: //www. palisade-europe. com/evolver/ • Premium Solver Platform (Frontline Systems Inc. ) http: //www. solver. com/xlsplatform. htm • Opt. Works Excel (Pi Blue) http: //www. piblue. com/products/optworks_ex. html • Gene. Hunter (Ward Systems) http: //www. wardsystems. com/products. asp? p=genehunter • Generator (New. Light Industries, Ltd. ) http: //www. nli-ltd. com/products/genetic_algorithms/generator. htm • xl bit (XLPert Enterprise ) http: //www. xlpert. com/wxl%20 bit. htm#gg 1 • Gen. Sheet (Inductive Solutions, Inc. ) http: //www. inductive. com/softgen. htm • GA Optimization for MS Excel (freeware) http: //www. alexschreyer. net/projects/xloptim/index. php