An Improved Evolutionary Algorithm as Function Optimizer

Abstract

In this paper an efficient evolutionary search algorithm, which can exploit the enhanced searching capability of parallel genetic algorithms while being sequential in nature, has been proposed. The performance of the algorithm with and without migration of chromosomes has been studied. The necessity of information exchange, in the form of migration between different processes, for good performance of the proposed algorithm is adequately established for a variety of function optimization problems. Variation of performance of the proposed algorithm with the number of migrations is demonstrated experimentally; thereby indicating that a proper choice of the frequency of migration and number of processes are crucial.

Indexing terms:

• Chromosome
• Genetic algorithm
• Migration
• Optimization
• Parallel genetic algorithms

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay

Sanghamitra Bandyopadhyay, did her Bachelors in Physics and Computer Science in 1988 and 1991 respectively. Subsequently, she did her Masters in Computer Science from Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur in 1993 and PhD in Computer Science from Indian Statistical Institute, Calcutta in 1998. Dr Bandyopadhyay is the recipient of Dr Shanker Dayal Sharma Gold Medal and Institute Silver Medal for being adjudged the best all round post graduate performer in 1993. She has visited Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1997. She was on a post doctoral assignment in University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia in 1999. Her research interests include Evolutionary Computation, Pattern Recognition, Machine Learning, Parallel Processing and Interconnection Networks.

Ujjwal Maulik

Ujjwal Maulik, did his Bachelors in Physics and Computer Science in 1986 and 1989 respectively. Subsequently, he did his Masters and PhD in Computer Science in 1991 and 1997 respectively from Jadavpur University, India. Dr Maulik has visited Center for Adaptive Systems Application, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA in 1997. He was on a post-doctoral assignment in University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia in 1999. He is currently a faculty in the Department of Computer Science, Kalyani Engineering College, India. His research interests include Computer Vision, Evolutionary Computation, Pattern Recognition, Parallel Processing and Interconnection Networks, and Natural Language Processing.