RGFGA: An efficient representation and crossover for grouping genetic algorithms

There is substantial research into genetic algorithms that are used to group large numbers of objects into mutually exclusive subsets based upon some fitness function. However, nearly all methods involve degeneracy to some degree. We introduce a new representation for grouping genetic algorithms, the restricted growth function genetic algorithm, that effectively removes all degeneracy, resulting in a more efficient search. A new crossover operator is also described that exploits a measure of similarity between chromosomes in a population. Using several synthetic datasets, we compare the performance of our representation and crossover with another well known state-of-the-art GA method, a strawman optimisation method and a well-established statistical clustering algorithm, with encouraging results

A Dedicated Genetic Algorithm for Two-Dimensional Non-Guillotine Strip Packing

This paper introduces DGA, a new dedicated genetic algorithm for a two-dimensional (2D) non-guillotine strip packing problem (2D-SPP). DGA integrates two key features: a hierarchical fitness function and a problem-specific crossover operator (WAX for "wasted area based crossover"). The fitness function takes into account not only the final height of the strip (to be minimized), but also the wasted areas. The goal of the meaningful (and "visual”) WAX crossover operator is to preserve the good property of parent packing configurations. To assess the proposed DGA, experimental results are shown on a set of well-known zero-waste benchmark instances and compared with previously reported genetic algorithms as well as the best performing meta-heuristic algorithms

Genetic Algorithm with Optimal Recombination for the Asymmetric Travelling Salesman Problem

We propose a new genetic algorithm with optimal recombination for the asymmetric instances of travelling salesman problem. The algorithm incorporates several new features that contribute to its effectiveness: (i) Optimal recombination problem is solved within crossover operator. (ii) A new mutation operator performs a random jump within 3-opt or 4-opt neighborhood. (iii) Greedy constructive heuristic of W.Zhang and 3-opt local search heuristic are used to generate the initial population. A computational experiment on TSPLIB instances shows that the proposed algorithm yields competitive results to other well-known memetic algorithms for asymmetric travelling salesman problem.Comment: Proc. of The 11th International Conference on Large-Scale Scientific Computations (LSSC-17), June 5 - 9, 2017, Sozopol, Bulgari

K-Bit-Swap: a new operator for real-coded evolutionary algorithms

There have been a variety of crossover operators proposed for real-coded genetic algorithms (RCGAs). Such operators recombine values from pairs of strings to generate new solutions. In this article, we present a recombination operator for RCGAs that selects the string locations for change separately randomly in the parent and offspring, enabling solution parts to move within a string, and compare it to mainstream crossover operators in a set of experiments on a range of standard multidimensional optimization problems and a real-world clustering problem. We present two variants of the operator, either selecting bits uniformly at random in both strings or sampling the second bit from a normal distribution centered at the selected location in the first string. While the operator is biased toward exploitation of fitness space, the random selection of the second bit for swapping reduces this bias slightly. Statistical analysis of the experimental results using a nonparametric test shows the advantage of the new recombination operators on our test optimization functions

Oriented crossover in genetic algorithms for computer networks optimization

Optimization using genetic algorithms (GA) is a well-known strategy in several scientific disciplines. The crossover is an essential operator of the genetic algorithm. It has been an active area of research to develop sustainable forms for this operand. In this work, a new crossover operand is proposed. This operand depends on giving an elicited description for the chromosome with a new structure for alleles of the parents. It is suggested that each allele has two attitudes, one attitude differs contrastingly with the other, and both of them complement the allele. Thus, in case where one attitude is good, the other should be bad. This is suitable for many systems which contain admired parameters and unadmired parameters. The proposed crossover would improve the desired attitudes and dampen the undesired attitudes. The proposed crossover can be achieved in two stages: The first stage is a mating method for both attitudes in one parent to improving one attitude at the expense of the other. The second stage comes after the first improvement stage for mating between different parents. Hence, two concurrent steps for improvement would be applied. Simulation experiments for the system show improvement in the fitness function. The proposed crossover could be helpful in different fields, especially to optimize routing algorithms and network protocols, an application that has been tested as a case study in this work

CIXL2: A Crossover Operator for Evolutionary Algorithms Based on Population Features

In this paper we propose a crossover operator for evolutionary algorithms with real values that is based on the statistical theory of population distributions. The operator is based on the theoretical distribution of the values of the genes of the best individuals in the population. The proposed operator takes into account the localization and dispersion features of the best individuals of the population with the objective that these features would be inherited by the offspring. Our aim is the optimization of the balance between exploration and exploitation in the search process. In order to test the efficiency and robustness of this crossover, we have used a set of functions to be optimized with regard to different criteria, such as, multimodality, separability, regularity and epistasis. With this set of functions we can extract conclusions in function of the problem at hand. We analyze the results using ANOVA and multiple comparison statistical tests. As an example of how our crossover can be used to solve artificial intelligence problems, we have applied the proposed model to the problem of obtaining the weight of each network in a ensemble of neural networks. The results obtained are above the performance of standard methods

Sparse experimental design : an effective an efficient way discovering better genetic algorithm structures

The focus of this paper is the demonstration that sparse experimental design is a useful strategy for developing Genetic Algorithms. It is increasingly apparent from a number of reports and papers within a variety of different problem domains that the 'best' structure for a GA may be dependent upon the application. The GA structure is defined as both the types of operators and the parameters settings used during operation. The differences observed may be linked to the nature of the problem, the type of fitness function, or the depth or breadth of the problem under investigation. This paper demonstrates that advanced experimental design may be adopted to increase the understanding of the relationships between the GA structure and the problem domain, facilitating the selection of improved structures with a minimum of effort