Wayne Wolf
EETimes (6/21/2011 10:36 PM EDT)
Embedded system designs must meet several different design criteria. The traditional operations research approach of defining a single objective function and perhaps some minor objective functions, along with design constraints, may not adequately describe the system requirements.
Economist Vilfredo Pareto developed a theory for multi-objective analysis known as Pareto optimality. An important concept provided by this theory is the way in which optimal solutions are judged: an optimal solution cannot be improved without making some other part of the solution worse.