  Artificial bee colony algorithm (ABC) developed by inspiring the foraging
phenomena of the natural honey bees is a simple and powerful metaheuristic
optimization algorithm. The performance of single objective ABC performance has
been well demonstrated by implemented to different design optimization problems
from elec-trical and mechanical to civil engineering. Its efficacy is
anticipated in the multi-objective design optimization of multilayer microwave
dielectric filters (MMDFs) which is a challenging multi-objective problem falls
into the context of electromagnetic (EM) design in electrical engineering. The
MMDF is composed of superimposed multiple dielectric layers in order to pass or
stop the EM wave at the desired frequency bands. An accurate dual-objective EM
model of MMDF is constituted to be the total reflection coefficients for
oblique incident wave angular range with transverse electric (TE) or transverse
magnetic (TM) polarizations. The objective functions depend on the total
reflection (TR) at the pass and stop band re-gions. Three types of the MDFs
that are low pass (LP), high pass (HP) and band pass (BP) MMDFs are optimally
designed across the constituted dual-objective EM model with a frequency
dependent material database through using the multi-objective ABC (MO-ABC)
strategy. The Pareto optimal solutions are refined within the possible
solutions for synchronously minimizing the objective func-tions. The global
optimal MMDF designs are selected from the Pare-to optimal solutions by
providing the trade-off therein between the objective functions. The
performance study regarding the frequen-cy characteristics of the designed
MMDFs are well presented via numerical and graphical results. It is hence
demonstrated that MO-ABC is even versatile and robust in the multi-objective
design of MMDFs.
