A many-objective evolutionary algorithm based on a projection-assisted intra-family election.

•This paper proposes a many-objective evolutionary algorithm based on a projection-assisted intra-family election, called MOEA/PIE.•This paper proposes the basic evolution direction, and a dominance relationship based evolution directions adaptive method.•A novel projection-assisted intra-family election mechanism is integrated into the evolution procedure.•The selection procedure based on angles adopts a dynamic deleting method.•MOEA/PIE does not require a set of predefined reference points or weight vectors.