An exploratory analysis in low-dimensional objective space of the vector evaluated particle swarm optimization (VEPSO) algorithm is presented. A novel visualization technique is presented and applied to perform the exploratory analysis. The exploratory analysis together with a quantitative analysis revealed that the VEPSO algorithm continues to explore without exploiting the well-performing areas of the search space. A detailed investigation into the influence that the choice of archive implementation has on the performance of the VEPSO algorithm is presented. Both the Pareto-optimal front (POF) solution diversity and convergence towards the true POF is considered during the investigation. Attainment surfaces are investigated for their suitability in efficiently comparing two multi-objective optimization (MOO) algorithms. A new measure to objectively compare algorithms in multi-dimensional objective space, based on attainment surfaces, is presented. This measure, referred to as the porcupine measure, adapts the attainment surface measure by using a statistical test along with weighted intersection lines. Loosely based on the VEPSO algorithm, the multi-guided particle swarm optimization (MGPSO) algorithm is presented and evaluated. The results indicate that the MGPSO algorithm overcomes the weaknesses of the VEPSO algorithm and also outperforms a number of state of the art MOO algorithms on at least two benchmark test sets. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2017. / Computer Science / PhD / Unrestricted