Evolutionary Algorithms 1 Introduction

1 Introduction

Fig. 1-1: Problem solution using evolutionary algorithms

Different main schools of evolutionary algorithms have evolved during the last 30 years: genetic algorithms, mainly developed in the USA by J. H. Holland [Hol75], evolutionary strategies, developed in Germany by I. Rechenberg [Rec73] and H.-P. Schwefel [Sch81] and evolutionary programming [FOW66]. Each of these constitutes a different approach, however, they are inspired by the same principles of natural evolution. A good introductory survey can be found in [Fdb94a].

This document describes algorithms of evolutionary algorithms. In Chapter 2 a short overview of the structure and basic algorithms of evolutionary algorithms is given. Chapter 3 describes selection. In Chapter 4 the different recombination algorithms are presented. Chapter 5 explains mutation and Chapter 6 reinsertion. Chapter 7 covers parallel implementations of evolutionary algorithms especially the regional population model employing migration in detail. The application of multiple/different strategies during an optimization including competition between subpopulations is discussed in Chapter 8. Chapter 9 lists all the used references and a large number of other publications from the field of Evolutionary Algorithms.