The purpose of this study is to investigate the application of genetic algorithm (GA) in modelling linear and non-linear dynamic systems and develop an alternative model structure selection algorithm based on GA. Orthogonal least square (OLS), a gradient descent method was used as the benchmark for the proposed algorithm. A model structure selection based on modified genetic algorithm (MGA) has been proposed in this study to reduce problems of premature convergence in simple GA (SGA). The effect of different combinations of MGA operators on the performance of the developed model was studied and the effectiveness and shortcomings of MGA were highlighted. Results were compared between SGA, MGA and benchmark OLS method. It was discovered that with similar number of dynamic terms, in most cases, MGA performs better than SGA in terms of exploring potential solution and outperformed the OLS algorithm in terms of selected number of terms and predictive accuracy. In addition, the use of local search with MGA for fine-tuning the algorithm was also proposed and investigated, named as memetic algorithm (MA). Simulation results demonstrated that in most cases, MA is able to produce an adequate and parsimonious model that can satisfy the model validation tests with significant advantages over OLS, SGA and MGA methods. Furthermore, the case studies on identification of multivariable systems based on real experimental data from two systems namely a turbo alternator and a continuous stirred tank reactor showed that the proposed algorithm could be used as an alternative to adequately identify adequate and parsimonious models for those systems
