A differential evolution algorithm for the resource investment problem with discounted cash flows

Meining Liu, Jing Liu, Xingxing Hao

Abstract: The resource investment problem with discounted cash flows is investigated in this paper. Its objective is to find a schedule and the resource requirement levels that the net present value of the project cash flows is maximized. We propose a self-adaptive differential evolution algorithm with two local search operators to solve this problem. We design the evolutionary operators such as mutation, crossover, local search, and immigration. By employing the proposed algorithm to solve 960 problems, we make a comparison with the genetic algorithm, which has been employed to solve this problem. Moreover, we design a local search operator and compare it with an existing local search operator, and the results show it is a very effective operator to solve this problem. In summary, the experimental results are quite satisfactory.