Showing papers on "Evolutionary programming published in 2015"

Parameter Control in Evolutionary Algorithms: Trends and Challenges

Abstract: More than a decade after the first extensive overview on parameter control, we revisit the field and present a survey of the state-of-the-art. We briefly summarize the development of the field and discuss existing work related to each major parameter or component of an evolutionary algorithm. Based on this overview, we observe trends in the area, identify some (methodological) shortcomings, and give recommendations for future research.

Distributed evolutionary algorithms and their models

Abstract: Graphical abstractDisplay Omitted HighlightsProvide an updated and systematic review of distributed evolutionary algorithms.Classify the models into population and dimension-distributed groups semantically.Analyze the parallelism, search behaviors, communication costs, scalability, etc.Highlight recent research hotspots in this field.Discuss challenges and potential research directions in this field. The increasing complexity of real-world optimization problems raises new challenges to evolutionary computation. Responding to these challenges, distributed evolutionary computation has received considerable attention over the past decade. This article provides a comprehensive survey of the state-of-the-art distributed evolutionary algorithms and models, which have been classified into two groups according to their task division mechanism. Population-distributed models are presented with master-slave, island, cellular, hierarchical, and pool architectures, which parallelize an evolution task at population, individual, or operation levels. Dimension-distributed models include coevolution and multi-agent models, which focus on dimension reduction. Insights into the models, such as synchronization, homogeneity, communication, topology, speedup, advantages and disadvantages are also presented and discussed. The study of these models helps guide future development of different and/or improved algorithms. Also highlighted are recent hotspots in this area, including the cloud and MapReduce-based implementations, GPU and CUDA-based implementations, distributed evolutionary multiobjective optimization, and real-world applications. Further, a number of future research directions have been discussed, with a conclusion that the development of distributed evolutionary computation will continue to flourish.

Mobile robot path planning using artificial bee colony and evolutionary programming

Abstract: Graphical abstractDisplay Omitted HighlightsWe solve the path planning problem using the combination of two evolutionary methods.First, an artificial bee colony (ABC) finds a feasible path in the free space.Second, evolutionary programming (EP) optimizes the path length and smoothness.The proposed approach was compared to a probabilistic roadmap (PRM) method.The ABC-EP approach outperforms the PRM approach on problems of varying complexity. In this paper, an evolutionary approach to solve the mobile robot path planning problem is proposed. The proposed approach combines the artificial bee colony algorithm as a local search procedure and the evolutionary programming algorithm to refine the feasible path found by a set of local procedures. The proposed method is compared to a classical probabilistic roadmap method (PRM) with respect to their planning performances on a set of benchmark problems and it exhibits a better performance. Criteria used to measure planning effectiveness include the path length, the smoothness of planned paths, the computation time and the success rate in planning. Experiments to demonstrate the statistical significance of the improvements achieved by the proposed method are also shown.

A Simple and Fast Hypervolume Indicator-Based Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithm

Abstract: To find diversified solutions converging to true Pareto fronts (PFs), hypervolume (HV) indicator-based algorithms have been established as effective approaches in multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs). However, the bottleneck of HV indicator-based MOEAs is the high time complexity for measuring the exact HV contributions of different solutions. To cope with this problem, in this paper, a simple and fast hypervolume indicator-based MOEA (FV-MOEA) is proposed to quickly update the exact HV contributions of different solutions. The core idea of FV-MOEA is that the HV contribution of a solution is only associated with partial solutions rather than the whole solution set. Thus, the time cost of FV-MOEA can be greatly reduced by deleting irrelevant solutions. Experimental studies on 44 benchmark multiobjective optimization problems with 2–5 objectives in platform jMetal demonstrate that FV-MOEA not only reports higher hypervolumes than the five classical MOEAs (nondominated sorting genetic algorithm II (NSGAII), strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm 2 (SPEA2), multiobjective evolutionary algorithm based on decomposition (MOEA/D), indicator-based evolutionary algorithm, and S-metric selection based evolutionary multiobjective optimization algorithm (SMS-EMOA)), but also obtains significant speedup compared to other HV indicator-based MOEAs.

Revisiting Evolutionary Fuzzy Systems: Taxonomy, applications, new trends and challenges

Abstract: Evolutionary Fuzzy Systems are a successful hybridization between fuzzy systems and Evolutionary Algo- rithms. They integrate both the management of imprecision/uncertainty and inherent interpretability of Fuzzy Rule Based Systems, with the learning and adaptation capabilities of evolutionary optimization. Over the years, many different approaches in Evolutionary Fuzzy Systems have been developed for improving the behavior of fuzzy systems, either acting on the Fuzzy Rule Base Systems' elements, or by defining new approaches for the evolutionary components. All these efforts have enabled Evolutionary Fuzzy Systems to be successfully applied in several areas of Data Mining and engineering. In accordance with the former, a wide number of applications have been also taken advantage of these types of systems. However, with the new advances in computation, novel problems and challenges are raised every day. All these issues motivate researchers to make an effort in releasing new ways of addressing them with Evolutionary Fuzzy Systems. In this paper, we will review the progression of Evolutionary Fuzzy Systems by analyzing their taxon- omy and components. We will also stress those problems and applications already tackled by this type of approach. We will present a discussion on the most recent and difficult Data Mining tasks to be addressed, and which are the latest trends in the development of Evolutionary Fuzzy Systems.

Memes as building blocks: a case study on evolutionary optimization + transfer learning for routing problems

Abstract: A significantly under-explored area of evolutionary optimization in the literature is the study of optimization methodologies that can evolve along with the problems solved. Particularly, present evolutionary optimization approaches generally start their search from scratch or the ground-zero state of knowledge, independent of how similar the given new problem of interest is to those optimized previously. There has thus been the apparent lack of automated knowledge transfers and reuse across problems. Taking this cue, this paper presents a Memetic Computational Paradigm based on Evolutionary Optimization $$+$$ Transfer Learning for search, one that models how human solves problems, and embarks on a study towards intelligent evolutionary optimization of problems through the transfers of structured knowledge in the form of memes as building blocks learned from previous problem-solving experiences, to enhance future evolutionary searches. The proposed approach is composed of four culture-inspired operators, namely, Learning, Selection, Variation and Imitation. The role of the learning operator is to mine for latent knowledge buried in past experiences of problem-solving. The learning task is modelled as a mapping between past problem instances solved and the respective optimized solution by maximizing their statistical dependence. The selection operator serves to identify the high quality knowledge that shall replicate and transmit to future search, while the variation operator injects new innovations into the learned knowledge. The imitation operator, on the other hand, models the assimilation of innovated knowledge into the search. Studies on two separate established NP-hard problem domains and a realistic package collection/deliver problem are conducted to assess and validate the benefits of the proposed new memetic computation paradigm.

Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms

Abstract: In this chapter we describe the application of evolutionary techniques to a particular class of problems, namely multiobjective optimisation. We begin by introducing this class of problems and the particularly important notion of Pareto optimality. We then look at some of the current state-of-the-art multiobjective EAs (MOEAs) for this class of problems and examine the ways in which they make use of concepts of different evolutionary spaces and techniques for promoting and preserving diversity within the population.

A C++application programming interface for biased random-key genetic algorithms

Abstract: In this paper, we describe brkgaAPI, an efficient and easy-to-use object-oriented application programming interface for the algorithmic framework of biased random-key genetic algorithms. Our cross-platform library automatically handles the large portion of problem-independent modules that are part of the framework, including population management and evolutionary dynamics, leaving to the user the task of implementing a problem-dependent procedure to convert a vector of random keys into a solution to the underlying optimization problem. Our implementation is written in the C++programming language and may benefit from shared-memory parallelism when available.

Parallel Evolutionary Algorithms

Abstract: Evolutionary algorithms (EA s) have given rise to many parallel variants, fuelled by the rapidly increasing number of CPU cores and the ready availability of computation power through GPUs and cloud computing. A very popular approach is to parallelize evolution in island models, or coarse-grained EA s, by evolving different populations on different processors. These populations run independently most of the time, but they periodically communicate genetic information to coordinate search. Many applications have shown that island models can speed up computation significantly, and that parallel populations can further increase solution diversity.

Analysis of Cartesian Genetic Programming’s Evolutionary Mechanisms

Abstract: Understanding how search operators interact with solution representation is a critical step to improving search. In Cartesian genetic programming (CGP), and genetic programming (GP) in general, the complex genotype to phenotype map makes achieving this understanding a challenge. By examining aspects such as tuned parameter values, the search quality of CGP variants at different problem difficulties, node behavior, and offspring replacement properties we seek to better understand the characteristics of CGP search. Our focus is two-fold: creating methods to prevent wasted CGP evaluations (skip, accumulate, and single) and creating methods to overcome CGPs search limitations imposed by genome ordering (reorder and DAG). Our results on Boolean problems show that CGP evolves genomes that are highly inactive, very redundant, and full of seemingly useless constants. On some tested problems we found that less than 1% of the genome was actually required to encode the evolved solution. Furthermore, traditional CGP ordering results in large portions of the genome that are never used by any ancestor of the evolved solution. Reorder and DAG allow evolution to utilize the entire genome. More generally, our results suggest that skip-reorder and single-reorder are most likely to solve hard problems using the least number of evaluations and the least amount of time while better avoiding degenerate behavior.

A classification and Pareto domination based multiobjective evolutionary algorithm

Abstract: In multiobjective evolutionary algorithms, most selection operators are based on the objective values or the approximated objective values. It is arguable that the selection in evolutionary algorithms is a classification problem in nature, i.e., selection equals to classifying the selected solutions into one class and the unselected ones into another class. Following this idea, we propose a classification based preselection for multiobjective evolutionary algorithms. This approach maintains two external populations: one is a positive data set which contains a set of ‘good’ solutions, and the other is a negative data set contains a set of ‘bad’ solutions. In each generation, the two external populations are used to train a classifier firstly, then the classifier is applied to filter the newly generated candidate solutions and only the ones labeled as positive are kept as the offspring solutions. The proposed preselection is integrated into the Pareto domination based algorithm framework in this paper. A systematic empirical study on the influence of different classifiers and different reproduction operators has been done. The experimental results indicate that the classification based preselection can improve the performance of Pareto domination based multiobjective evolutionary algorithms.

DECMO2: a robust hybrid and adaptive multi-objective evolutionary algorithm

Abstract: We describe a hybrid and adaptive coevolutionary optimization method that can efficiently solve a wide range of multi-objective optimization problems (MOOPs) as it successfully combines positive traits from three main classes of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs): classical approaches that use Pareto-based selection for survival criteria, approaches that rely on differential evolution, and decomposition-based strategies. A key part of our hybrid evolutionary approach lies in the proposed fitness sharing mechanism that is able to smoothly transfer information between the coevolved subpopulations without negatively impacting the specific evolutionary process behavior that characterizes each subpopulation. The proposed MOEA also features an adaptive allocation of fitness evaluations between the coevolved populations to increase robustness and favor the evolutionary search strategy that proves more successful for solving the MOOP at hand. Apart from the new evolutionary algorithm, this paper also contains the description of a new hypervolume and racing-based methodology aimed at providing practitioners from the field of multi-objective optimization with a simple means of analyzing/reporting the general comparative run-time performance of multi-objective optimization algorithms over large problem sets.

A comparative study of multi-objective optimal power flow based on particle swarm, evolutionary programming, and genetic algorithm

Abstract: This paper compares the performance of three population-based algorithms including particle swarm optimization (PSO), evolutionary programming (EP), and genetic algorithm (GA) to solve the multi-objective optimal power flow (OPF) problem. The unattractive characteristics of the cost-based OPF including loss, voltage profile, and emission justifies the necessity of multi-objective OPF study. This study presents the programming results of the nine essential single-objective and multi-objective functions of OPF problem. The considered objective functions include cost, active power loss, voltage stability index, and emission. The multi-objective optimizations include cost and active power loss, cost and voltage stability index, active power loss and voltage stability index, cost and emission, and finally cost, active power loss, and voltage stability index. To solve the multi-objective OPF problem, Pareto optimal method is used to form the Pareto optimal set. A fuzzy decision-based mechanism is applied to select the best comprised solution. In this work, to decrease the running time of load flow calculation, a new approach including combined Newton–Raphson and Fast-Decouple is conducted. The proposed methods are tested on IEEE 30-bus test system and the best method for each objective is determined based on the total cost and the convergence values of the considered objectives. The programming results indicate that based on the inter-related nature of the objective functions, a control system cannot be recommended based on individual optimizations and the secondary criteria should also be considered.

Evolutionary Path Control Strategy for Solving Many-Objective Optimization Problem

Abstract: The number of objectives in many-objective optimization problems (MaOPs) is typically high and evolutionary algorithms face severe difficulties in solving such problems. In this paper, we propose a new scalable evolutionary algorithm, called evolutionary path control strategy (EPCS), for solving MaOPs. The central component of our algorithm is the use of a reference vector that helps simultaneously minimizing all the objectives of an MaOP. In doing so, EPCS employs a new fitness assignment strategy for survival selection. This strategy consists of two procedures and our algorithm applies them sequentially. It encourages a population of solutions to follow a certain path reaching toward the Pareto optimal front. The essence of our strategy is that it reduces the number of nondominated solutions to increase selection pressure in evolution. Furthermore, unlike previous work, EPCS is able to apply the classical Pareto-dominance relation with the new fitness assignment strategy. Our algorithm has been tested extensively on several scalable test problems, namely five DTLZ problems with 5 to 40 objectives and six WFG problems with 2 to 13 objectives. Furthermore, the algorithm has been tested on six CEC09 problems having 2 or 3 objectives. The experimental results show that EPCS is capable of finding better solutions compared to other existing algorithms for problems with an increasing number of objectives.

A new approach to design of control systems using genetic programming

Abstract: In this paper a new approach to automatic design of control systems is proposed. It is based on a knowledge about modelling object and capabilities of the genetic programming. In particular, a new type of the problem encoding, new evolutionary operators (tuning operator and mutation operator) and new initialization method are proposed. Moreover, we present a modified block schema of genetic algorithm and modification of genetic operators: insertion, pruning, crossover were introduced. Combination of mentioned elements allows us to simplify a design of control systems. It also provides a lot of possibilities in the selection of the control system parameters and its structure. Our method was tested on the model of quarter car active suspension system. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.itc.44.4.10214

The review of multiple evolutionary searches and multi-objective evolutionary algorithms

Abstract: Over the past decade, subdividing evolutionary search into multiple local evolutionary searches has been identified as an effective method to search for optimal solutions of multi-objective optimization problems (MOPs). The existing multi-objective evolutionary algorithms that benefit from the multiple local searches (multiple-MOEAs, or MMOEAs) use different dividing methods and/or collaborations (information sharing) strategies between the created divisions. Their local evolutionary searches are implicitly or explicitly guided toward a part of global optimal solutions instead of converging to local ones in some divisions. In this reviewed paper, the dividing methods and the collaborations strategies are reviewed, while their advantage and disadvantage are mentioned.

Gene Regulatory Network Evolution Through Augmenting Topologies

Abstract: Artificial gene regulatory networks (GRNs) are biologically inspired dynamical systems used to control various kinds of agents, from the cells in developmental models to embodied robot swarms. Most recent work uses a genetic algorithm (GA) or an evolution strategy in order to optimize the network for a specific task. However, the empirical performances of these algorithms are unsatisfactory. This paper presents an algorithm that primarily exploits a network distance metric, which allows genetic similarity to be used for speciation and variation of GRNs. This algorithm, inspired by the successful neuroevolution of augmenting topologies algorithm’s use in evolving neural networks and compositional pattern-producing networks, is based on a specific initialization method, a crossover operator based on gene alignment, and speciation based upon GRN structures. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this new algorithm by comparing our approach both to a standard GA and to evolutionary programming on four different experiments from three distinct problem domains, where the proposed algorithm excels on all experiments.

On the Runtime of Randomized Local Search and Simple Evolutionary Algorithms for Dynamic Makespan Scheduling

Abstract: Evolutionary algorithms have been frequently used for dynamic optimization problems. With this paper, we contribute to the theoretical understanding of this research area. We present the first computational complexity analysis of evolutionary algorithms for a dynamic variant of a classical combinatorial optimization problem, namely makespan scheduling. We study the model of a strong adversary which is allowed to change one job at regular intervals. Furthermore, we investigate the setting of random changes. Our results show that randomized local search and a simple evolutionary algorithm are very effective in dynamically tracking changes made to the problem instance.

Parallel Multiobjective Evolutionary Algorithms

Abstract: The use of evolutionary algorithms (EA s) for solving multiobjective optimization problems has been very active in the last few years. The main reasons for this popularity are their ease of use with respect to classical mathematical programming techniques, their scalability, and their suitability for finding trade-off solutions in a single run. However, these algorithms may be computationally expensive because (1) many real-world optimization problems typically involve tasks demanding high computational resources and (2) they are aimed at finding a whole front of optimal solutions instead of searching for a single optimum. Parallelizing EAs emerges as a possible way of reducing the CPU time down to affordable values, but it also allows researchers to use an advanced search engine – the parallel model – that provides the algorithms with an improved population diversity and enable them to cooperate with other (eventually nonevolutionary) techniques. The goal of this chapter is to provide the reader with an up-to-date review of the recent literature on parallel EAs for multiobjective optimization.