SIMULATED BINARY CROSSOVER FOR

CONTINUOUS SEARCH SPACE

Kalyanmoy Deb and Ram Bhusan Agrawal

IITK/ME/SMD-94027

November, 1994

Convenor, Technical Reports

Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur, UP 208 016
India

 Simulated Binary Crossover for Continuous Search Space
Kalyanmoy Deb and Ram Bhushan Agrawal
Department of Mechanical Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology
Kanpur, UP 208 016, INDIA
email: [email protected]

Abstract
The success of binary-coded genetic algorithms (GAs) in problems having discrete search
space largely depends on the coding used to represent the problem variables and on the
crossover operator that propagates building-blocks from parent strings to children strings.
In solving optimization problems having continuous search space, binary-coded GAs dis-
cretize the search space by using a coding of the problem variables in binary strings.
However, the coding of real-valued variables in nite-length strings causes a number of
diculties|inability to achieve arbitrary precision in the obtained solution, xed mapping
of problem variables, inherent Hamming cli problem associated with the binary coding,
and processing of Holland's schemata in continuous search space. Although, a number of
real-coded GAs are developed to solve optimization problems having a continuous search
space, the search powers of these crossover operators are not adequate. In this paper, the
search power of a crossover operator is dened in terms of the probability of creating an
arbitrary child solution from a given pair of parent solutions. Motivated by the success
of binary-coded GAs in discrete search space problems, we develop a real-coded crossover
(we called the simulated binary crossover or SBX) operator whose search power is similar
to that of the single-point crossover used in binary-coded GAs. Simulation results on a
number of real-valued test problems of varying diculty and dimensionality suggest that
the real-coded GAs with the SBX operator are able to perform as good or better than
binary-coded GAs with the single-point crossover. SBX is found to be particularly useful
in problems having multiple optimal solutions with a narrow global basin and in problems
where the lower and upper bounds of the global optimum are not known a priori. Fur-
ther, a simulation on a two-variable blocked function shows that the real-coded GA with
SBX works as suggested by Goldberg and in most cases the performance of real-coded GA
with SBX is similar to that of binary GAs with a single-point crossover. Based on these
encouraging results, this paper suggests a number of extensions to the present study.

1 Introduction
The crossover operator is believed to be the main search operator in the working of a genetic
algorithm (GA) as an optimization tool (Goldberg, 1989). The purpose of a crossover oper-
ator is two-fold. Initial random strings representing the problem variables must be searched
thoroughly in order to create good strings. Thereafter, good portions of these strings must
be combined together to form better strings. A number of crossover operators exist in the
GA literature; however the search power to achieve both the above aspects diers from one
crossover to another. The successful operation of GAs also depends on the coding mecha-
nism used to represent the problem variables (Kargupta, Deb, and Goldberg, 1992; Radclie,
1
1993). Unless good building-blocks are coded tightly , the crossover operator cannot combine
the building-blocks together (Goldberg, Korb, and Deb, 1989). This coding-crossover inter-
action is important for the successful working of GAs. The success of binary-coded GAs in
problems having discrete search space is largely due to the careful choice of a coding and a
crossover operator that complements each other's interaction in propagating useful building-
blocks in successive generations. The problem of tight or loose coding of problem variables is
largely known as the linkage problem, which has been recently tackled for binary-coded GAs
by using messy genetic algorithms (Goldberg, Korb, Deb, 1989; Goldberg, et. al, 1993), In
real-coded GAs, however, the variables are directly used. Thus, the tight or loose coding of
bits constituting a variable does not arise, but the tight or loose coding of dierent variables
still exists. Whether there really exists a real-coded GA to solve this linkage problem is a
matter of interesting further research. However, in this paper, we recognize the importance of
this aspect of coding inherent to problems with multiple variables in the successful working of
GAs, but we do not address this issue. Instead, we devise a real-coded crossover operator that
addressees some of the other diculties inherent to binary-coded GAs in tackling problems
having continuous search space.
In solving problems having continuous search space using binary-coded GAs, binary strings
are usually chosen to code the problem variables. When a binary (discrete) coding is used for
continuous search space, a number of diculties arise. One diculty is the Hamming clis
associated with certain strings, from which a transition to a neighboring solution (in real
space) requires alteration of many bits. Hamming clis in the binary coding cause articial
hindrance to a gradual search in the continuous search space. The other diculty is the
inability to achieve any arbitrary precision in the optimal solution. In binary-coded GAs,
the string length must be chosen a priori to enable GAs to achieve a certain precision in
the solution. The more the required precision, the larger is the string length. For large
strings, the population size requirement is also large (Goldberg, Deb, and Clark, 1992), thereby
increasing the computational complexity of the algorithm. Since xed, mapped coding is used
to code the variables, the variable bounds must be such that they bracket the optimum variable
value. Since in many problems, this information is not usually known a priori, this may cause
some diculty in using binary-coded GAs in those problems. Further, a careful thinking
of the schema processing in binary strings reveals that not all Holland's schemata are equally
important in most problems having continuous search space. To a continuous search space, the
meaningful schemata are those that represent the contiguous regions of the search space. The
schema (    1), for example, represents every other point in the discretized search space.
Although this schema may be useful in certain periodic or oscillatory functions, the schema (1
   ) signies a more meaningful schema representing the right-half of the search space in
most problems. Thus, the crossover operator used in the binary coding needs to be redesigned
in order to increase the propagation of more meaningful schemata pertaining to continuous
search space.
However, motivated by the success of binary GAs in discrete search space problem and

2
realizing the need of an ecient real-coded GA to eliminate the above diculties of binary-
coded GAs in continuous search space problems, we devise a real-coded crossover operator
that simply simulates a binary crossover operator but without using the coding of variables.
In order to achieve that we dene the search power of a crossover operator in terms of the
probability distribution of any arbitrary child string to be created from any two given parent
strings1 The search power of the single-point crossover operator is rst calculated. Later, the
simulated binary crossover (SBX) is developed to have a search power similar to that in the
single-point crossover. The dierence in the implementations of the real-coded GAs with SBX
and binary-coded GAs with single-point crossover is that in the former method the coding
of variables is eliminated and a child string is created from a probability distribution which
depends on the location of the parent strings.
Although a number of other real-coded GAs exist in the literature (Eshelman and Schaer,
1993; Wright, 1991), the search power, as dened in the paper, of these crossover operators
is not adequate. Of them, the study by Eshelman and Schaer is particularly important in
that they introduced the concept of a schema (which they called interval schema) relevant for
continuous search space. It may be mentioned here that the interval schemata are conceptually
similar to the virtual alphabets introduced by Goldberg (1991) and locality formae dened by
Radclie (1991). The virtual alphabets, the locality formae, or the interval schemata represent
contiguous regions in the search space. Although Eshelman and Schaer devised a blend
crossover (BLX) operator, they did not construct the crossover operator from the interval-
schema processing point of view. In a later section, we observe that their best-found crossover
BLX-0.5 does not quite satisfactorily propagate interval schemata from parent to the children
points. Interestingly, we nd that a special case of SBX operator processes interval schemata
better than their best-reported BLX-0.5 operator.
In the literature on evolution strategy, real-valued parameters are directly used, but mu-
tation is used as the main search operator in those studies (Rechenberg, 1973). Only recently,
crossover operators are being used in evolution strategy studies (Back, Homeister, and Schwe-
fel, 1991). For each variable, the discrete crossover chooses one of the parent values as the child,
the intermediate crossover uses the average of the parent values as the child. Although other
types of crossover operators are introduced, these operators are deterministic and can create
only one search point. Thus, these operators do not have the adequate search power. How-
ever, if the eect of crossover and subsequent mutation operator are considered, their combined
search power becomes signicant. Since in this paper we mainly discuss and compare crossover
operators, we do not consider the combined action of crossover and mutation operators of evo-
lution strategy methods.
In the remainder of the paper, we investigate the ecacy of the real-coded GAs with the
SBX operator on a number of carefully chosen test functions. Simulation results are compared
1
The design of a crossover operator depends on a number of other factors such as respect, assortment,
and transmissibility of formae (similarity templates) as suggested by Radclie (1991). The crossover operator
designed here satises Radclie's design criteria, but it is not a R3 (random, respectful, recombination) operator.
Instead, the deviation from the random distribution of children and ability to access search points (Radclie's
ergodicity criterion) is used to dene the search power of a crossover operator.

3
with that of binary-coded GAs with single-point crossover and real-coded GAs with BLX-0.5
operator on the same functions. The test functions also include a two-variable, two-sided active
blocked function introduced by Goldberg (1991). Goldberg argued that the working of the real-
coded GAs is such that in these functions the population rst converges to virtual alphabets
(above-average points) and then the convergence to the global optimum gets blocked by two
local optima. Our simulations using the SBX operator support Goldberg's theory of virtual
alphabets, and the simulation results on this simple blocked function show that real-coded
GAs with SBX perform similar to that of the binary-coded GAs with a single-point crossover.
Simulation results also show that real-coded GAs with the SBX operator can overcome the
Hamming cli problem, precision problem, and xed mapping problem and perform similar to
binary-coded GAs with the single-point crossover (but better than real-coded GAs with BLX-
0.5) in dicult problems. These results are encouraging and suggest the use of real-coded
GAs with SBX operator to other optimization problems having continuous variables. Based
on these results of this paper, a number of extensions to this work are outlined.

2 Binary Crossover Operator

In many applications of binary-coded GAs, a single-point crossover is used. In a single-point
crossover, a random cross site along the length of the string is chosen and the bits on one side
of the cross site are swapped between two parent strings. In a single-variable optimization
problem, the action of the crossover is to create two new children strings from two parent
strings. In a multi-variable optimization problem, each variable is usually coded in a certain
number of bits (collectively called a substring) and these substrings are combined to form a
bigger string. Since, in a single-point crossover operator, only one cross site is chosen from the
complete string, the action of the single-point crossover may disrupt one variable or a combi-
nation of contiguous variables simultaneously. In the following, we calculate the probability of
creating a child point from two chosen points under the single-point crossover.
2.1 Search power
The search power of a crossover operator is dened here as a measure of how exible the op-
erator is to create an arbitrary point in the search space. Radclie (1991) suggests a number
of criteria for successful design of a crossover operator. That study shows how dierent exist-
ing crossover operators satisfy those criteria, but the study does not suggest any measure of
comparing operators when they satisfy all required criteria. It is worth mentioning here that
Radclie also dened an ergodicity criterion as the ability to access to any search point through
genetic operators from any population. In this paper, we use Radclie's ergodicity criterion to
dene the search power of a crossover operator as the probability of creating an arbitrary point
in the search space from two given parent points. To make the analysis simpler, we assume
that the function is a single-variable function. Later, we shall discuss how the analysis can be
extended for multi-variable functions.

4
 B1 A1 DV B1 A2 DV
1 0 1 0 1 0 1 85 =) 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 83
0 1 1 0 0 1 1 51 0 1 1 0 1 0 1 53
B2 A2 Avg. 68 B2 A1 Avg. 68

Figure 1: The action of single-point crossover on two random strings are shown. DV stands
for the decoded parameter value. Notice that the average of the decoded parameter values is
the same before and after the crossover operation.

When two parent binary strings of length ` are crossed at an arbitrary site, the contents
on either side of the cross site get swapped between the parents. Let us imagine that the cross
site is k bits from the right of the string. We also assume that the leftmost bit is the highest
signicant bit in the underlying binary coding. If the decoded value of the rightmost k bits in
the rst parent is A1 and the decoded value of the rest (` ? k) bits is B1 , then the decoded
value of the string is as follows:
x1 = B1 2k + A1 : (1)
The decoded value of the second parent string can also be calculated by knowing A2 and B2
as the decoded values of the right k bits and the rest (` ? k) bits of the string, respectively:
x2 = B2 2k + A2 . Figure 1 shows the single-point crossover operation on two arbitrary strings
and the resultant children strings obtained by crossing at a particular site. The eect of the
single-point crossover operator is to swap the values A1 and A2 between the two parent points.
Thus, the decoded values of the children strings are as follows:
y1 = B1 2k + A2 ; (2)
y2 = B2 2k + A1 : (3)
The above equations bring out an important property of the single-point crossover. Notice
that the mean of the decoded values of the parent strings ((x1 + x2 )=2) is the same as that of
the children strings ((y1 + y2 )=2). This can also be observed in Figure 1, by calculating the
decoded parameter values of both parent and children strings. It is interesting to note that
this property of decoded parameter values holds good for real parameter values of parent and
children points for a linear mapping rule. Assuming a linear mapping rule, the parent points
can be obtained as follows:
pi = mxi + t; i = 1; 2; (4)
where m and t are two constants. The children points can also be computed using the same
mapping rule as follows:
ci = myi + t; i = 1; 2: (5)
Using the above two equations and the previous observation on yi , it is trivial to show that
mean of the parent points is the same as that of the children points. In other words, the children

5
points are equidistant from the mid point of the parent points. We shall use this property to
develop the real-coded crossover operator later. Further, we observe that the children points
may lie inside or outside the region bounded by the parent strings depending on the the strings
and the location of the cross site. In order to dene the spread of the children points with
respect to that of the parent strings, we dene a spread factor  as the ratio of the spread of
children points to that of the parent points:
c
1 ? c 2
 = p ? p  :



(6)

1 2
With the above denition of the spread factor, we classify crossovers in three dierent classes:
Denition 1 All crossover operations having a spread factor  < 1 are contracting crossovers.
When the children points are enclosed by the parent points, the spread of the children points
(the absolute dierence in c1 and c2 values) is smaller than that in parent points. Thus, the
spread factor  is less than one. Since the children points usually replace the parent points in
nonoverlapping genetic algorithms, this crossover seems to have an contracting eect on the
parent points.
Denition 2 All crossover operations having a spread factor  > 1 are expanding crossovers.
When the children points enclose the parent points, the absolute dierence in children points
is more than that of the parent points. This crossover has an eect of expanding the parent
points to form the children points.
Denition 3 All crossover operations having a spread factor  = 1 are stationary crossovers.
In stationary crossovers, the children points are the same as the parent points. One interesting
feature of the spread factor  is that it hides the eect of the true spread of the children points.
The spread factor  signies a spread of children points relative to that of the parent points.
For a xed value of  , two close children points can be obtained if the parent points are close
to each other or two distant children points could be obtained if the parent points are far away
from each other. In a single-point crossover, the occurrence of a contracting, an expanding, or
a stationary crossover depends on the parent strings and the location of the cross site.
With the above denitions of dierent types of crossovers, let us now compute the probabil-
ity of occurrence of three dierent types of crossovers for any two random parent strings. We
rst consider that two `-bit parent strings are crossed at a site k 2 (0; ` ? 1) from the rightmost
bit. Once again, we assume that the leftmost bit is the most signicant bit. Representing two
parent strings as ai ; bi 2 f0; 1g, we write the decoded values as follows:
`
X ?1
x1 = ai 2i ; (7)
i=0
`?1
X
x2 = bi 2i : (8)
i=0

6
Using the property of single-point crossover operator given in equations 7 and 8, we obtain the
decoded values of the children strings as follows:
?1
kX ?1
`
X
y1 = b i 2i + ai 2i ; (9)
i=0 i=k
kX?1 ?1
`X
y2 = a i 2i + bi 2i : (10)
i=0 i=k
For a linear mapping rule (equations 9 and 10), the spread factor dened in equation 6 can be
written in terms of decoded values of parent and children strings. Thus, equations 7 through
10 can be used to write the spread factor  . But we simplify the expression for the spread
factor by assuming a parameter ui = (ai ? bi ) for all i = 0; 1; : : : ; (` ? 1). Note that each ui
can take a value ?1, 0, and 1.
y 
1 ? y
 (k) = x ? x  ;

 2



1 2
P`?1
i Pk?1
u i 2 ? i=0 ui 2
i
i=
= P`?1 i Pk?1 i ;
k
i=k ui 2 + i=0 ui 2
?  (k) ;
= 11 +  (k)
where  (k) = ki=0
P ?1 ui 2i / `?1 ui 2i . The above term for  is valid for any two parent strings
P
i=k
(or in other words for any ui values) and for any crossover site (or for any k). But, let us
rst consider the contracting crossovers (where 0    1). In order to simplify our analysis
further, we assume that parent strings are two extreme strings having all ones (111. . . 1) and
all zeros (000. . . 0). In this case, the dierence in allele values in each bit is one (or ui = 1
for i = 0; 1; : : : ; (` ? 1)). Substituting ui = 1 in the above expression, we obtain the following
expression for  :
 (k) = 1 ? 2(2k ? 1)=(2` ? 1)  1 ? 2(?`+1) 2k : (11)
The above spread factor for two extreme strings of length 20 crossed at dierent sites is plotted
in Figure 2. It is clear from the gure that for most cross sites k, the spread factor   1.
With a distribution of the spread factor as a function of the cross site, we can now compute
the probability of creating any arbitrary string (a representative  ) from two given parent
strings. Let us consider Figure 2 again. For a particular value of  , we consider a small range
d and nd how many crossover operations (dk) would produce children points in that range.
This can be achieved by calculating the slope of the above expression at the corresponding  :
dk =  1 d:
 d 
(12)
 
dk 

Denoting the probability of occurrence of  by C ( ) and knowing that  lies between zero and
one for contracting crossovers, we obtain the distribution for d ! 0:
 
1=  d 
dk 
C ( ) = R 1   d   : (13)
0 1=  dk  d

7
 Figure 2: The distribution of  (k) versus k for ` = 20 is shown.

The denominator of the right-side expression is a constant quantity that makes the distribution
C ( ) a probability distribution. Here, we are not interested in computing the above probabil-
ity distribution exactly, rather we are interested in nding the functional relationship of the
probability distribution C ( ) with  . Thus, it will suce here to compute the numerator of
the above expression only. By dierentiating equation 11 with respect to k and substituting
the expression for k in terms of  , we obtain the numerator of the right-side expression in
equation 13 as follows:
C ( ) = 1 ?  ; (14)
where  is a constant term. The functional form of the above distribution is shown in Figure 3
(for 0    1). The gure shows that as  is increased towards one, the probability increases.
Thus, the probability of creating children points closer to the parent points is larger than that
of points far away from the parents.
The probability distribution for expanding crossovers ( > 1) can be obtained by consid-
ering two other parent strings2 and by using the above procedure. However, the probability
distribution can also be obtained from that of the contracting crossovers by realizing a simple
probabilistic event. If two children strings found in a contracting crossover are crossed at the
same site, the same parent strings are obtained. Thus, for each contracting crossover with a
spread factor  , there exists an expanding crossover with a spread factor 1= . In other words,
we can argue that the probability of occurrence of contracting crossovers having a spread fac-
2
Notice that with two extreme strings considered in the contracting crossovers the expanding crossover is
not possible.

8
tor between  and ( + d ) would be the same as the probability of occurrence of expanding
crossovers with a spread factor between 1=( + d ) and 1= . Summing these probabilities for
all contracting crossovers in the range 0    1, we conclude that the overall probability of
contracting crossovers is the same as that of the expanding crossovers3 . Equating the proba-
bility of expanding crossovers (E ( )) having spread factor between  and ( + d ) and that
of contracting crossovers (C ( )) having spread factor between 1=( + d ) and 1= , we obtain
the following:
E ( ) [( + d ) ?  ] = C ( 1 ) 1 ?  +1 d :
 

(15)
Rearranging terms and in the limit d ! 0, we obtain
E ( ) = 1 C ( 1 ):
2  (16)
With this relationship between the probability of occurrence of contracting and expanding
crossovers, we only have to know the probability distribution for only one type of crossovers.
Since their sum is the overall probability of all crossovers, the overall probability for either
contracting or expanding crossovers must be equal to 0.5. For the probability distribution
given in equation 14, we obtain a probability distribution for expanding crossover using the
above equation:
E ( ) =  (? 1) : (17)
This distribution is plotted in the region   1 in Figure 3. The gure shows that the
probability of creating children strings having a large  is small.
Recall that equations 14 and 17 are derived only for two extreme binary strings. In order
to investigate the above distributions and probability distributions for other parent pairs, we
create all pairs of binary strings of a particular length and cross them at all possible cross sites.
For each crossover, the corresponding spread factor  is calculated and arranged in ascending
order. The experiment is continued for string lengths of 10, 15, and 30. Figure 4 shows the
distribution for ` = 15. The gure shows that the probability of occurrence of   1 is more
likely than any other  value. If the parents are closer, the spread of the two likely children is
also smaller. On the other hand, if the spread of parents is more, the spread of likely children
is also large. This aspect of the crossover operator distinguishes it from the mutation operator.
In a mutation operator, the probability of a mutated string close to the parent string is higher,
but this probability is usually constant and depends only on one string.

3 Simulated Binary Crossover (SBX)

In order to simulate the operation of a single-point binary crossover directly on real variables,
we design a crossover operator that uses a similar probability distribution as obtained in the
3
Of course, the stationary crossovers can be considered as either contracting or expanding. For the sake of
argument, we can assume that half of the stationary crossovers are contracting and rest half of the stationary
crossovers are expanding.

9
Figure 3: Probability distributions of contracting and expanding crossovers on two extreme
binary strings are shown.

previous section. One property of a probability distribution is that the cumulative probability
of the all possible states is equal to one. But the integration of the probability distribution in
equation 14 over all values of  is not a nite number, this is because at  = 1 the probability
does not exist. Moreover, recall that the distribution obtained in equation 14 is only for two
extreme binary strings as parents. For contracting crossovers, we assume a simple polynomial
probability distribution which is similar to the distribution in equation 13 and to that shown
in Figure 4:
C ( ) = 0:5(n + 1) n ; (18)
where n is any nonnegative real number. The factor 0:5 makes the cumulative probability at
 = 1 equals to 0.5. A large value of n allows a better approximation of the above distribution
with equation 14 for large values of  . A small value of n makes a more uniform distribution
in the range 0    1. A value of n = 0 makes a uniform distribution in the range (Figure 5).
A moderate value of n (2 to 5) matches closely with the simulation results for the single-point
crossover in binary-coded GAs.

10
Figure 4: Probability distributions of contracting and expanding crossovers on all pairs of
random binary strings of length 15 are shown.

For expanding crossovers, the probability distribution can be derived by using equation 16
and 18:
E ( ) = 0:5(n + 1)  n1+2 : (19)
It is interesting to note that the probability of all expanding crossovers (can be found by
evaluating 1=1 E ( )d ) is found to be 0:5, equal to that of the contracting crossovers. Also
R

the probability of stationary crossovers obtained from both equations are the same.
The probability distribution for contracting and expanding crossovers for various values of
n are shown in Figure 5. It is clear that the distribution largely depends on the exponent n.
For small values of n, points far away from the parents are likely to be chosen, whereas for large
values of n, only points closer to the parents are likely to be chosen. In a sense, the exponent
n is similar to the reciprocal to the temperature parameter (T ) used in simulated annealing
algorithm (Aarts and Korst, 1989). Ideally, a good search algorithm must have a broad search
(with large T or small n) in early generations and as the generations proceed the search must
be focussed on to a narrow region (with small T or large n) to obtain better precision in the
11
Figure 5: Probability distributions of contracting and expanding crossovers for the proposed
polynomial model are shown.

solution. However, for brevity, we use a xed compromised n for the entire simulation.
Figure 5 shows that the search of SBX crossover extends practically to any point in the
real space. If lower and upper bounds for the variable is known, the above distributions can
be restricted to that region, a matter we discuss in Section 6.
It is important to note that the polynomial probability distribution given in equation 18 is
one of many possible probability distributions for contracting crossovers. For a dierent distri-
bution, the corresponding probability distribution for expanding crossovers can be calculated
by using equation 16. It is worth mentioning here that a distribution for expanding crossover
can also be assumed rst and then the corresponding probability distribution for contracting
crossovers can be computed by replacing E ( ) with C ( ) in equation 16. In all such proba-
bility distributions, the probability of creating children points close to the parent points must
be more than that of creating children points far away from the parent points (This simulates
the eect of the single-point crossover as found in Figure 4). However, in the remainder of the
paper, we use the polynomial probability distribution given in equations 18 and 19.

12
 In the following, we discuss how the above analysis can be extended to multi-variable
optimization problems.
3.1 Extension to multi-variables problems
The most common way to code multiple variables using a binary coding is to use a mapped
concatenated string (Goldberg, 1989). In a single-point crossover, one cross site is chosen along
the entire string and the contents on the right-side of the cross site are swapped between the
parents. When binary-coded GAs are used to solve a N -variable function, and when the cross
site falls on the bits representing the k-th variable from the left, the single-point crossover
creates a new value of the k-th variable and swap the (k + 1)-st to N -th variables between the
parents. The same operation can be simulated by using the SBX operator on the k-th variable
(k is chosen between 1 to N at random) and swapping the (k +1)-st to N -th variables between
the parents. It has been shown elsewhere (Booker, 1993) that this feature of the single-point
crossover causes a large positional bias for certain combinations of variables to get propagated
from the parent to children. In this study, we choose a mechanism similar to uniform crossover
for multiple variables (Syswerda, 1889) for choosing which variables to cross. However, we
recognize here that this assumption is related to the important linkage issue of multivariable
coding and our mechanism does not alleviate the linkage problem. In order to simplify the
implementation of SBX operator, we choose to perform SBX crossover in each variable with
a probability 0.5. But in the case of single-variable functions, since there is only one variable,
the SBX is performed with a probability 1.0.
The concept of probability of crossover (pc ) used in canonical GAs still applies to this real-
coded GA. This probability means that on an average pc N of the points in the mating pool
are participated in the crossover.

4 Existing Real-coded Crossover Operators

The study of real-coded GAs has not received much attention among the genetic algorithm
community. However, a nice description of dierent approaches to real-coded GAs is given
in Eshelman and Schaer (1993). The early work of Wright (1991) suggested using a linear
crossover operator which compares only three points (p1 + p2 ), (1:5p1 ? 0:5p2 ), and (?0:5p1 +
1:5p2 ) and chooses the best two points. That work also suggested a crossover operator that
creates a point by randomly perturbing a single variable in its range. Goldberg introduced
the concept of virtual alphabets in the context of real-coded GAs (Goldberg, 1991). Although
he did not suggest any particular crossover operator, he suggested blocked functions which
may cause diculty to real-coded GAs. Eshelman and Schaer (1993) have introduced the
notion of interval schemata for real-coded genetic algorithms and suggested a blend crossover
(BLX-) operator. For two parent points p1 and p2 (assuming p1 < p2 ), the BLX- randomly
picks a point in the range (p1 ? (p2 ? p1 ), p2 + (p2 ? p1 )). If  is zero, this crossover creates
a random point in the range (p1 , p2 ). In a number of test problems, they have reported that

13
BLX-0:5 (with  = 0:5) performs better than the BLX operators with any other  value. It
is worthwhile to mention here that the interval schamata are similar in concept to Goldberg's
virtual alphabets|both representing contiguous regions in the search space.
4.1 Search power
For the above real-coded crossovers, we investigate the search power, as dened in the previous
section. The search power of Wright's linear crossover is clearly not adequate (too determin-
istic), because only three children points can be obtained from two parent strings. Wright's
uniform crossover or Eshelman and Schaer's BLX-0.0 operator has the exibility of creating
any point enclosed by the parent points. As discussed by Eshelman and Schaer (1993), this
crossover preserves the interval schemata representing contiguous regions in the search space.
In the following, we take a closer look at the interval schema processing under BLX operator.
Consider a variable whose range is [0,8]. According to the formulations of Eshelman and
Schaer, there are 45 interval schemata for the above range of the variable (assuming that the
points represented by an interval schema are bounded by integers only). Let us also consider
two parent points p1 = 2 and p2 = 5, respectively. The rst point represents a total of
(2 + 1)(9 ? 2) or 21 interval schemata and the second point represents (5 + 1)(9 ? 5) or 24
interval schemata. These schemata are shown in the following table:
Number of interval schemata
Parent point at 2 Parent point at 5
(2,2) (5,5)
(1,2) (2,3) (4,5) (5,6)
(0,2) (1,3) (2,4) (3,5) (4,6) (5,7)
(0,3) (1,4) (2,5) (2,5) (3,6) (4,7) (5,8)
(0,4) (1,5) (2,6) (1,5) (2,6) (3,7) (4,8)
(0,5) (1,6) (2,7) (0,5) (1,6) (2,7) (3,8)
(0,6) (1,7) (2,8) (0,6) (1,7) (2,8)
(0,7) (1,8) (0,7) (1,8)
(0,8) (0,8)
The common schemata between the two parent points are shown inside boxes and there are
12 such schemata. One underlying feature of a successful coding-crossover interaction is that a
crossover must propagate the common schemata (appropriate to the coding) between the two
participating parents to their children. The single-point crossover in the binary-coded GAs has
this property for propagating Holland's schemata. In the real-coded GAs, if we assume that
the interval schemata are what get processed, then the probability of creating a child point
can be assumed to vary proportionately with the number of common schemata between the
child and parent points. This argument in a sense signies that a point closer (in the context
of the interval schemata) to a parent point is more likely to get selected as a child point. With
this argument, we can now nd the probability distribution of a child point for the two chosen
parents p1 = 2 and p2 = 5.
14
 Any point in the range (2,5) contains all 12 common schemata of the two parents. Thus any
child point in the range (2,5) is equally probable. Therefore, we may argue that the BLX-0.0 or
Wright's uniform crossover (contracting crossover) propagates all common interval schemata
from the parent to the children. But when BLX- ( is positive) is used, all common interval
schemata in both parents are not propagated to the children point outside the range enclosed by
the parent points. For these crossovers (expanding crossovers), the probability can be assigned
to depend linearly with the number of common interval schemata between children and parent
points. In the above example, the point c1 = 1 will represent only eight of the above common
schemata, the point c1 = 0 will represent four of the above common schemata, and so on. In
general, the number of common interval schemata among any three points is (xl + 1)(N ? xh),
where xl and xh are the lowest and the highest values of the three points and N is the entire
range of the search space. In the above problem, since the range ([0,8]) is considered, N = 9.
For children points x < 2, the number of common schemata is (x + 1)(9 ? 5) or 4(x + 1). For
children points 2  x  5, the number of common schemata is (2 + 1)(9 ? 5) or 12 (a constant)
and for children points x > 5, the number of common schemata is (2 + 1)(9 ? x) or 3(9 ? x).
These numbers are plotted in Figure 6. If the probability of creating a child point is assigned
according to these numbers, then the distribution is uniform for points enclosed by the parents
and linearly varying for outside points. The BLX-0.5 crossover suggested by Eshelman and
Schaer (1993) deviates from this observation in the case of expanding crossovers (BLX-0.5
operator has a uniform distribution, as shown in Figure 7).
It is interesting to note that when these probability distributions are plotted as functions
of the spread factor  (Figure 7), similar probability distributions emerge. The contracting
crossovers have uniform probability distribution for any child point inside the region enclosed
by the parent points and the expanding crossovers have a diminishing probability for children
points away from the parent points. It is also interesting that the above probability distri-
bution is a special case of the SBX operator developed in the previous section. For n = 0,
all contracting crossovers have a uniform probability and the probability in the expanding
crossovers diminishes with the increase in the spread factor. The only discrepancy between
these two distributions is that in the SBX operator with n = 0, the probability reduces in a
nonlinear manner and that in the ideal interval-schema processing, the probability reduces lin-
early. Nevertheless, we can argue that the SBX operator with n = 0 respects interval-schema
processing better than the BLX-0.5 operator. However, other SBX operators with nonzero n
do not respect interval schema. The above analysis suggests that the other SBX operators may
respect some other schema which represents contiguous points but with varying importance.
Since such schemata would be a variation of the interval schemata or locality formae, they
would also satisfy Radclie's design criteria (Radclie, 1991). However, the formalization of
these schemata is merely a mathematical exercise, which would be of little importance to the
current study. Thus, we avoid that exercise in this paper and present simulation results of
SBX operator on a number of test problems.

15
Figure 6: Number of common interval schemata between a children points and the parent
points are shown. The parent points are at 2 and 5.

5 Simulation Results
To investigate the ecacy of the SBX operator, we have chosen a test bed of 12 functions, of
which nine are taken from the existing literature. The test functions range from single-variable
functions to multi-variable functions, from unimodal functions to multimodal functions, and
from deterministic functions to stochastic functions. Finally, a two-variable blocked function
is included to compare the performance of real-coded GAs with SBX and binary-coded GAs
with single-point crossover on a dicult function.
A real-coded genetic algorithm is implemented using C programming language. The initial
population of variable vectors is created in an initial range of variables supplied by the user.
However, in subsequent generations, the population is not guaranteed to be conned to the
given range, because the SBX operator has a nonzero (albeit small) probability of creating
children points far away from the parent points. This is advantageous in problems where the
location of the true optimum is not known beforehand. We demonstrate this exibility of

16
Figure 7: Probability distributions of BLX-0.5 and the ideal distribution are shown with spread
factor  .

real-coded GAs with the SBX operator in test problems by initializing the population far away
from the true optimum. However, this feature of the SBX operator is redundant for problems
where the lower and upper limits of the variables are absolutely known. We discuss a simple
modication to this SBX operator to conne the search in the given range in Section 6. In
all our simulations, we allow the SBX to create any point in the real space with probability
distributions given in equations 18 and 19. In order to investigate the eect of the probability
distribution of contracting and expanding crossovers in the SBX operator, we present simu-
lation runs with a number of dierent exponent values (n). It may be recalled here that for
small values of the exponent n, the children points far away from the parent points can be
obtained, but for large n, only points closer to the parent points are likely to be obtained.
Mutation is not used to primarily investigate the search power of SBX operator alone. Four
dierent criteria are used to terminate the search process. A simulation run is terminated if
any one (or more) of them is satised. The criteria are as follows:
1. The best individual in the population is close to the true optimal point with a small
17
 termination margin  in all problem variables. In this case, we assume that the GA has
found the true optimal point.
2. The function value of the best individual in the population is smaller than or equal to a
target function value fT . In this case, we assume that the GA has converged near the
true optimal solution.
3. All individuals in the population have converged to a small neighborhood (within a small
margin  in all problem variables) to a point other than the global optimum point. In
this case, a premature convergence occurs.
4. The number of generation has exceeded a specied large number Tmax . In this case, the
GA has not converged to any solution at all.
Unless specied, all simulations use a target function value fT equal to the function value
at the global optimum point and a Tmax value equal to 200. The performance of real-coded
GAs with the SBX operator is compared with BLX-0.5 and with single-point crossover. In all
simulations, a binary tournament selection without replacement and a crossover probability of
1.0 are used. Average number of function evaluations required to successfully solve a problem
(when either criterion 1 or 2 above is satised) is tabulated for each problem. Other GA
parameters are mentioned in the description of the simulation results.
5.1 V function
This function is a single-variable function dened in the range 0  x  1 (Eshelman and
Schaer, 1993). The function has only one minimum point at x = 0:5:
f1 (x) = jx ? 0:5j: (20)
First, the binary-coded GAs are used. With a string length of 30 and a population size of
50, binary-coded GAs with the single-point crossover operator nd a point with six decimal
places of accuracy ( = 10?6 ) only 23 out of 100 times. In rest of the runs, GAs have converged
prematurely to a point close to the true optimum, but not as close as within  from the optimum.
The average function value of the best individual in all 100 runs is found to be 0.0015, which
is very close to the function value of the true optimum (f1 = 0:0). It is important to note
that the minimum point of the above V-function corresponds to a Hamming cli in the binary
coding used, but with  = 10?6 there are about 2,147 strings representing the region (0:5 ? ,
0:5 + ). However, the presence of Hamming clis is one of the problems of the binary coding,
as encountered by other researchers (Davis, 1991).
Real-coded GAs with the SBX operator are applied next. A summary of the simulation
results is tabulated in Table 1. A termination margin of  = 10?6 is used. The advantage
of real-coded GAs over binary-coded GAs in this problem is largely due to the Hamming cli
problem at the optimum point. The results also show that the real-coded GAs with the SBX
operator nd the optimum point in all simulations with the chosen tolerance. When even

18
a smaller termination margin (up to the machine precision) is used, a similar performance
of SBX is observed. This demonstrates the ability of the real-coded GAs to overcome the
precision problem of binary-coded GAs. Notice that the performance of the SBX operator
remains the same for dierent values of the exponent n. But for a large n, more number of
function evaluations are required to nd the optimum point.
The success rate of BLX-0.5 operator on this problem is equally well to SBX. Since the
SBX operator performs expanding crossovers about the half the time and searches more region
than BLX-0.5, the function evaluations required to solve the above problem is less in the case
of BLX operator. But, when the same problem is solved with a population initialized in the
range (0.9, 1.0), the performance of SBX is much better than that of the BLX-0.5 operator.
The success rate of SBX is the same as before, but the success rate of BLX-0.5 reduces to about
25%. Recall that the minimum point does not lie in the range where the initial population
is created. In order to nd the optimum point, the search operator has to search outside
this range. Obviously, the binary-coded GAs will fail to nd the true optimum in this case,
because of the xed-mapped coding of the variable. The search power of SBX is further tested
by starting with populations conned in the region (0.9999, 1.0000). The termination margin
used in this case is also 10?6 . With SBX, the expanding crossovers nd better points outside
the initial range and the whole population migrates towards the true optimum. The success
rate of SBX is again 100% in this case, whereas BLX-0.5 performs poorly.

Table 1: Simulation results of GAs with dierent crossover operators on the V-function are
tabulated. The number in brackets in column six indicates the number of times GAs did not
converge to any point at all.
Performance of 100 runs
Operator RangePopsize n or ` Success Prem. conv. Avg. Trials
1-pt (0,1) 50 30 23 77 834.8
SBX (0,1) 50 0 100 0 929.5
2 100 0 748.5
5 100 0 818.5
100 0 100 0 1739.0
2 100 0 1396.0
5 100 0 1321.0
BLX-0.5 (0,1) 50 100 0 746.0
100 100 0 1368.0
SBX (0.9,1) 50 0 100 0 1279.5
2 100 0 2018.5
BLX-0.5 (0.9,1) 50 24 76 2604.2
SBX (0.9999,1) 50 0 100 0 1790.0
2 100 0 4318.0
BLX-0.5 (0.9999,1) 50 0 61(39)

19
5.2 V-cli function
This function is similar to the V function, except that the function has a discontinuity at the
minimum point (x = 0:5) (Eshelman and Schaer, 1991):
(

f2(x) = 0:6 ? x; if x < 0:5; (21)

x ? 0:5; otherwise.
The tolerance parameter  = 10?6 is used again. Table 2 shows the performance of binary-
coded GAs with the single-point crossover, real-coded GAs with SBX and BLX-0.5 on this
function. The binary-coded GAs with single-point crossover is not able to nd a solution

Table 2: Simulation results of GAs with dierent crossover operators on the V-Cli function
are tabulated. The number in brackets in column six indicates the number of times GAs did
not converge to any point at all.
Performance of 100 runs
Operator RangePopsize n or ` Success Prem. conv. Avg. Trials
1-pt (0,1) 50 30 16 84 840.6
SBX (0,1) 50 0 88 0(12) 2,015.9
2 100 0 1,382.0
5 58 42 1,191.4
BLX-0.5 (0,1) 50 100 0 1,726.0
SBX (0.9999,1) 50 0 88 0(12) 2,795.5
1 100 0 3,253.0
2 74 2(24) 7,147.3
BLX-0.5 (0.9999,1) 50 0 62(38)

close to the true optimum in 100% simulations. The performance of binary-coded GAs is
worse than the simple V-function, because of the Hamming cli at the optimum point and
chosen termination criterion (the convergence can practically occur from only one side of the
optimum). The real-coded GAs with the SBX operator, on the other hand, performs well for
small values of exponent n. The deterioration in the performance of SBX with either n = 0
and large n is due to the discontinuity at the optimum point. However, the performance of
BLX-0.5 is 100% with slightly more function evaluations than that of SBX with n = 2. The
table clearly shows that SBX is superior to BLX-0.5 when the population is initialized far away
from the minimum point.
5.3 Bimodal, equal spread function
The bimodal function used here has two minimum points|one is better than the other. The
basin of attraction of each minimum point is identical to the other:
(

f3 (x) = ?0? exp(?(x ? 0:25)2 =0:01); if x  0:5;

:5 exp(?(x ? 0:75)2 =0:01); otherwise. (22)

20
This function has a local minimum at x = 0:75 and a global minimum at x = 0:25. The
function values at the local and global minima are ?0:5 and ?1:0 respectively. This function
is chosen to test whether real-coded GAs with SBX can nd the global minimum point or not.
Table 3 compares the performance of both GAs for a termination margin of  = 10?4 . The
performance of binary-coded GAs is inferior to that of real-coded GAs with SBX or BLX-0.5,
because of problems related to the Hamming cli at the optimum point and xed-length coding.
In binary-coded GAs, a larger population is required to achieve a desired solution accuracy for
a problem coded in a bigger string (Goldberg, Deb, and Clark, 1992). Once again, real-coded
GAs with both SBX and BLX-0.5 perform 100% of the time. Despite the presence of the local
optimum, real-coded GAs nd the true optimum point with the desired accuracy.

Table 3: Simulation results of GAs with dierent crossover operators on the function f3 are
tabulated.
Performance of 50 runs
Operator Range Popsize n or ` Success Prem. conv. Avg. Trials
1-pt (0.0, 1.0) 100 20 49 1 765.3
50 30 20 1023.3
SBX (0.0,1.0) 100 0 50 0 870.0
2 50 0 660.0
5 50 0 642.0
BLX-0.5 (0.0,1.0) 100 50 0 670.0
SBX (0.5,1.0) 100 0 4 46 4500.0
2 9 41 1400.0
5 1 49 1800.0
BLX-0.5 (0.5,1.0) 100 0 50

The performance of neither of the two real-coded GAs is good for runs with adverse initial
populations (with a population initialized in the local basin). Since, the population is initialized
in the range (0:5; 1:0), the global minimum point (x = 0:25) is not included in the range.
Thus, the binary-coded GAs will not be able to nd this minimum point with the above initial
populations (problem of xed, mapped coding). The performance of the real-coded GAs with
SBX is marginally better than with BLX-0.5. Since about 50% of the points are created outside
the range enclosed by the parents, a few points in the global basin are expected to be created
by SBX. Since the binary tournament selection scheme and a pc = 1 are used in the above
simulations, the selection pressure is not enough to maintain those points in the global basin.
When the crossover probability of SBX is reduced to pc = 0:5, the disruption of good points
reduces and the success rate of SBX increases to 34 out of 50 runs with n = 0 (with 2,006
function evaluations).

21
5.4 Bimodal, unequal spread function
This function is a modication of the previous function. Here, the basin of attraction of the
global minimum is smaller than that of the local minimum:
(

f4 (x) = ?? exp(?(x ? 0:2)=0:04)2 ); if x  0:3;

0:5 exp(?(x ? 0:6)=0:4)2 ); otherwise. (23)

Table 4 compares the performance of single-point crossover, SBX, and BLX-0.5 on this function.
Compared to the previous function, the performance of the binary-coded GAs with single-point
crossover in this function is marginally worse because the global basin is comparatively smaller.
The performance of the real-coded GAs with SBX operator remains unchanged except that the
SBX with a small exponent n does not work that well. The reason for its failure is the same
as that in the previous function with adverse initial population. Although some points in the
global basin are created, the selection pressure is not sucient to maintain them in subsequent
generations.

Table 4: Simulation results of GAs with dierent crossover operators on the function f4 are
tabulated. The number inside brackets in column six indicates the number of times the GA
did not converge to any point at all.
Performance of 50 runs
Operator Range Popsize n or ` Success Prem. conv. Avg. Trials
1-pt (0,1) 100 20 45 5 817.8
SBX (0,1) 100 0 8 0(42) 450.0
2 40 6(4) 1117.5
5 50 0 730.0
10 50 0 688.0
BLX-0.5 (0,1) 100 4 45(1) 1575.0

The dierence in performance of SBX and BLX-0.5 is clear in this function. Since the local
basin occupies most of the search space, a large portion of the initial random population is
created in the local basin. About 45 out of 50 GA simulations with BLX-0.5 get conned to
the local basin and nally converge to the local optimal solution. Even though some points
are created in the global basin, they are dicult to maintain in the population, because of
the large disruption rate associated with the BLX-0.5 operator. On the other hand, with SBX
having a moderate n, the spread of the children points created using SBX is not substantial.
The population gradually shifts towards the global basin and nally converges to the global
optimum point.
5.5 Pole problem
The pole problem is a two variable function having four minimum points, of which one is
the global minimum. The function is hypothetically constituted to have a light pole at each

22
minimum point with certain illumination capability. The illumination is maximum at the pole
and diminishes away from the pole. When multiple poles are present in the search space, the
mixed illumination results. For a given distribution of illumination levels in the search space,
the objective of the problem is to nd the point with maximum illumination. The problem
can be written mathematically as follows:
X4 ci hi
Maximize f5 (x; y) = ; (24)
i=1 [h2 + (x ? xi )2 + (y ? yi )2 ]3=2
i
where (xi ; yi ) represents the coordinates of the poles, ci represents the intensities of light at
the i-th pole, and hi represents the height of the i-th pole. In the parlance of optimization,
the parameter, (xi ; yi ) represents the i-th optimum point, ci =h2i signies the function value at
the i-th peak, and hi signies basin of attraction of the i-th peak. In the above problem, there
are four peaks with the following parameter values:
i
1 2 3 4
xi 0.4 0.3 0.7 0.8
yi 0.3 0.7 0.2 0.8
ci 1.0 1.0 1.0 1.125
hi 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.075.
The optimization problem has a global maximum point at x = (0:8; 0:8). Since this is a
two-variable optimization problem, the technique described in Section 3.2 is used here. The
SBX operator is performed for each variable with a probability 0.5. This causes about half
of the variables (on an average) to undergo crossover operation. We follow this strategy for
all multi-variable functions and for the BLX-0.5 operator. Table 5 shows the performance of
single-point, SBX, and BLX on this problem for a termination margin  = 10?3 .

Table 5: Simulation results of GAs with dierent crossover operators on the function f5 are
tabulated. The number inside brackets in column ve indicates the number of times the GA
did not converge to any point at all.
Performance of 10 runs
Operator Popsize n or ` Success Prem. conv. Avg. Trials
1-pt 200 20 6 4 3666.7
30 9 1 3977.8
40 8 2 2975.0
SBX 200 0 0 9(1)
2 8 2 3,375.0
5 9 1 3,200.0
BLX-0.5 200 3 7 2,933.3

We observe that real-coded GAs with the SBX operator (for n between 2 to 5) perform as
good as the binary-coded GAs with the single-point crossover. However, real-coded GAs with
BLX-0.5 do not perform as well as other two GAs.
23
Table 6: Simulation results of GAs with dierent crossover operators on De Jong's ve functions
are tabulated. The number inside brackets in column seven indicates the number of times the
GA did not converge to any point at all.

Perform. of 50 runs
Premature
Function Tolerance Operator Popsize n or ` Success conv. Avg. Trials
Function-I 10?2 1-pt 100 30 25 25 2532.0
SBX 100 0 50 0 2556.0
4 50 0 2190.0
10 24 26 2420.8
Function-II 10 ?3 1-pt 100 24-40 0 50
SBX 0-20 0 50
Function-III 1:0 1-pt 100 20 50 0 560.0
50 50 0 720.0
SBX 0 50 0 1256.0
5 50 0 722.0
Function-IV 0:16 1-pt 100 240 4 42(4) 15200.0
SBX 0 0 0(50)
2 50 0 17032.0
5 50 0 9372.0
Function-V 0:1 1-pt 100 20 48 2 756.2
40 49 1 836.7
SBX 0 7 2(41) 5014.3
5 36 14 1097.2
10 37 13 891.9

From the above simulations, we observe that the BLX-0.5 operator performs well only
on well-behaved unimodal functions having a continuous search space, but does not perform
as well in problems with multiple optimum points. Moreover, the focus in this paper is to
compare the SBX operator used in real-coded GAs with the single-point crossover operator
used in binary-coded GAs. Thus, in subsequent simulations, we compare single-point and SBX
operators only.
5.6 De Jong's functions
All ve De Jong's test functions (De Jong, 1975) are tried next. The simulation results for the
single-point and the SBX operators are tabulated in Table 6.
Function I is a three-variable unimodal function having a minimum point at (0; 0; 0)T . In
De Jong's study, the function is dened in the range ?5:12  xi  5:12 for i = 1; 2; and
3. In real-coded GAs with the SBX operator, points outside this range may also be created.
Thus, we assume that the function is also dened outside the above range, but the initial

24
population is created in the above range. The simulation results (tabulated in Table 6) show
that GAs with SBX are able to nd the minimum point with two decimal places of accuracy
in all simulations for small values of n. The binary-coded GAs with the single-point crossover
nd the minimum point in only 50% of the simulations. The results for SBX is expected
because the function is unimodal and continuous in the real search space. In binary-coded
GAs, however, the minimum point falls in a Hamming cli, which causes diculty to solve the
problem in 100% simulations.
Function II is a two-dimensional minimization problem with the global minimum at (1; 1)T .
The function was originally dened in the range ?2:048  x1 ; x2  2:048 for binary-coded GAs
(De Jong, 1975). For real-coded GAs, the initial population is created in the above region.
The results in Table 6 shows that both GAs can not nd the optimum point (1; 1)T . In this
function, the slope towards the optimum point is very small and the population gets converged
to a point along the ridge. When the SBX operator is performed along a line joining the
two parents (similar to Wright's line crossover (Wright, 1991) but a point is chosen with the
polynomial probability distributions), near 100% convergence is observed for n = 1 to 3.
Function-III is a ve-dimensional stair-case like function where the function value is mono-
tonically nondecreasing as the variables are increased. The original function was designed for
?5:12  xi  5:12 for i = 1 to 5. Since the SBX operator may create children points outside
this range, we have modied the original function by taking the absolute value of the function
creating the initial population in the range 0  xi  10:24. This results in a minimum point at
xi = 0. In order to make the comparison fair, binary GAs are also run on this modied function
in the range 0  xi  10:24. Both GAs perform equally well on this function. It is interesting
to note that despite the function is discontinuous at many points in the search space, the
real-coded GAs with SBX are able to nd the true optimum. This is because the function is
monotonically nondecreasing towards the optimum point and because the population-approach
of GAs does not allow them to get stuck at any of the plateau.
Function-IV is a 30-dimensional unimodal function with a zero-mean Gaussian noise. The
optimum point of the deterministic function is xi = 0 (i = 1 to 30) with a function value equal
to zero. But due to the addition of the Gaussian noise, the optimum point and hence the
optimum function value changes. To decide the convergence to the optimum, we have assumed
a target function value of fT = ?3:0. If any point has a function value smaller than fT , the
simulation is terminated. A termination margin of  = 0:1 is used. Real-coded GAs with the
SBX operator perform better than the binary-coded GAs for n = 2 to 5, probably because the
population size used in the simulation is inadequate in the case of binary GAs.
Function-V is a 25-dimensional, multimodal function having 25 minimum points, of which
only one is the global minimum. The basin of attraction of the global minimum point is
very narrow; thus, the classical optimization methods may have diculty to solve the problem
to global optimality. Simulation results show the superiority of binary-coded GAs with the
single-point crossover on this function. The part of the success of binary-coded GAs in this
problem is due to the biased positioning of the optimum points in equal intervals. When the

25
locations of 25 optima are randomly placed, the dierence in the performance of binary-coded
GAs and real-coded GAs is small|binary-coded GAs succeed only 64% of the simulations,
whereas real-coded GAs with SBX succeed in 54% of the simulations.
From these simulations we conclude that real-coded GAs with SBX have performed better
than binary-coded GAs on De Jong's functions having continuous search space and have per-
formed similar to binary-coded GAs on discrete De Jong's test functions. In order to bolster
our conclusions further, we apply SBX operator to two more functions.
5.7 Rastrigin's function
Rastrigin's function was used by a number of GA researchers in the recent past (Muhlenbein,
Schomisch, and Born, 1991; Gordon and Whitley, 1993). The function has 20 variables and
contains 1020 local minimum points, of which only one is the global minimum point:
20
x2i ? 10 cos(2xi ); ?5:12  xi  5:12:
X
f11 (x) = 200 + (25)
i=1

The global minimum point is at xi = 0 for all i = 1; 2; : : : ; 20. At this point, the function value
is zero. The other local minima occur when the cosine term is one. This function is a dicult
optimization problem, because there are 220 dierent local optimal points (surrounding the
global optimum) with function values very close to that at the global optimal point. We set
 = 0:1 and the target function value fT = 1:0. This allows a termination of the simulation
when at least 19 out of 20 variables have converged to their global minimum values.
Binary-coded GAs with equal substring length for all variables are applied rst. In all ten
simulations, binary-coded GAs prematurely converge to a wrong solution (Table 7). The aver-

Table 7: Simulation results of GAs with dierent crossover operators on the function f11 are
tabulated. The number inside brackets in column ve indicates the number of times the GA
did not converge to any point at all.
Performance of 10 runs
Operator Popsize n or ` Success Prem. conv. Avg. Trials
Binary 400 200 0 10
300 0 10
SBX 400 0 0 0(10)
2 10 0 49,680.0
5 6 4 39,866.7
10 10 0 28,000.0
20 10 0 23,360.0

age function value of the best solution in all ten simulations is found to be 11.32. Real-coded
GAs with the SBX operator perform better than binary-coded GAs. The average function value
of the best solution in all simulations is 6:81 for n = 2 and 3:77 for n = 10, which are also
better compared to that obtained for binary-coded GAs. The success of real-coded GAs in this
26
problem is due to the controlled allocation of children points under the SBX operator. With
moderate n, the children points are not far away from the parent points. So the search slowly
progresses towards the optimum point. It is worth mentioning here that with a tolerance of 0.1
in each of 20 variables, a enumerative search method requires about [(5:12 ? (?5:12))=0:1]20 or
1:48(1040 ) function evaluations. Real-coded GAs took only a fraction of this search space to
locate a near global minimum point. These results show the ecacy of real-coded GAs with
the SBX operator in solving multi-variable, multi-modal functions.
5.8 A two-variable blocked function
A two-variable blocked function is designed according to Goldberg's (1991) suggestion. The
mean (over x1 ) and global slice (at x1 ) of the function are plotted in Figure 8. The global

Figure 8: The mean slice and global slice (at x ) of the function f12 are shown. The average
function value over the search space is 0:287.
maximum point lies at the point (0:4; 0:45)T . Two local hills are placed on either side of
the global optimum. In the global slice (taken at x1 = 0:4), the global maximum point is
surrounded by two local maximum points, but the average slice (averaged on x1 values) is
27
Table 8: Simulation results of GAs with dierent crossover operators on the function f12 are
tabulated. The quantity in bracket indicates in column ve the number of times GAs have
converged to the global basin, but not to the global optimum point.
Performance of 50 runs
Operator Popsize n or ` Success Prem. conv. Avg. Trials
Binary 100 20 5 45(27) 1,480.0
30 15 35(27) 1,753.3
50 6 44(32) 1,616.7
SBX 100 0 42 8(0) 2,323.8
2 47 3(0) 1,872.3
5 40 10(1) 1,677.5

predominant by the local peaks. It is interesting to note that the search along the variable
x1 is unimodal. Thus, the population is expected to converge at x1 = 0:4. Once most of the
population converges on or near x1 = 0:4, the search progresses along the global slice. Since the
population is converged to the extreme local peaks, it becomes dicult for classical algorithms
to nd the global point. The function is given below:
5 ai
f12 (x1 ; x2 ) = ?(x1 ? 0:4)2 +
X

b
i=1 i + r (x
i 1 ? 0: 4)2 + (x2 ? ci )2 : (26)

Here, the following parameters are used:

i
1 2 3 4 5
ai 0.002 0.0025 0.014 0.003 0.0028
bi 0.002 0.0020 0.003 0.001 0.0010
ci 0.1 0.9 0.45 0.27 0.65
ri 0 0 10 10 10
Simulation results with binary-coded and real-coded GAs are tabulated in Table 8. Al-
though the binary-coded GAs with single-point crossover converge to the global optimum
point (with three decimal places of accuracy) only 5 to 15 times, they converge to the global
basin in about 80% of the simulations. Similar results are observed with the real-coded GAs
with SBX; in at least 80% of the runs, they have converged to the global maximum point. In
all successful simulations of real-coded GAs, it is observed that the variable x1 converges to the
true optimal value rst, as predicted by Goldberg (1991). Subsequently, the search along the
global slice continues and the population located at two extreme optima improves gradually
and can overcome the barrier of the local peaks to nally converge to the global optimum.
Whenever real-coded GAs have failed to nd the global optimum point, the convergence to the
variable x2 has occurred rst. When this happens, the population shifts in any one or both
the peaks shown on the mean slice plot (dashed line) in Figure 8. Since the function on x1 is
unimodal with maximum at x1 = 0:4, the solution converges to a wrong solution.

28
 Further experiments are necessary to conclude how the proposed algorithm will work on
higher-dimensional blocked functions, but the simulation results on the above two-variable
blocked function show that although the SBX operator works on real parameter values, its
search power in solving the function is similar to that in the single-point crossover.

6 Extensions
The above study opens a number of avenues for further research. Some of them are discussed
below:
1. Bounded search space,
2. Selection of other form of probability distributions for contracting and expanding crossovers,
3. Real-coded mutation operator,
4. Application of SBX to real-world optimization problems,
5. Simulating other binary crossovers for real-coded GAs,
6. Population sizing and convergence proof,
7. Multimodal and multiobjective optimization using real-coded GAs.
In the present study, we have allowed the children points to lie anywhere between negative
innity to positive innity. In certain problems, the search space could be bounded. For
example, if the length of a member in an engineering component design is a variable, negative
values of the variable do not make sense. The SBX operator used in this study does not always
guarantee a child point with a positive value, even though both parents may have positive
values. The contracting and expanding probability distributions can be modied so that the
probability of creating points outside a given bound is zero, while maintaining the same nature
of the probability distribution. One way to achieve this is that for any two given parent points,
the cumulative probability of the children points within the given bound is rst calculated. If
this probability is a (say), the probability distribution function is multiplied by a factor 1=a,
so that the overall probability for points within the bounds is equal to one.
The probability distribution for contracting crossover used in this paper is a polynomial
function to the spread factor. This distribution is used to reduce the computations required in
each crossover operation. Other functional forms of the probability distributions can also be
used, but care must be taken to choose a distribution which is similar in form to that given in
Figure 4. In this respect, a Gaussian-like distribution with mean at  = 1 and variance (2 )
chosen to have at most 3 points within a specied bound can also be used.
In this paper, we investigated the eect of the crossover alone, keeping the mutation proba-
bility zero. In order to maintain diversity in the population, a mutation operator can be used.
In real-coded GAs, the mutation operation can be achieved by choosing a neighboring point

29
in the vicinity of the current point. This can be implemented by xing an explicit probability
distribution or by adopting the methods used in other population-based real-coded studies
(Back, Homeister, and Schwefel, 1991).
The present study shows that real-coded GAs is preferred to binary-coded GAs for prob-
lems with continuous search space and for problems where arbitrary precision is desired. Many
engineering design optimization problems contain mixed variables|both discrete and contin-
uous. The classical optimization methods do not perform very well in solving these kinds of
problems (known as mixed integer programming problems). GAs with a combination of both
binary coding (for discrete variables) and real coding (for continuous variables) can be used
to solve these problems eciently. The crossover operation can be performed as follows. A
variable is rst chosen for crossover. If a discrete variable needs to be crossed, the single-point
crossover or another binary operator can be used to the bits representing that variable only.
But if a continuous variable needs to be crossed, the SBX operator can be used. This way the
resulting string also becomes a valid string. We are currently applying this technique to truss-
structure optimization problems, where optimization of truss topology (represented by binary
variables) and cross-section of members (continuous variables) are achieved simultaneously, an
approach which is ideal but can not be achieved using classical optimization methods.
The SBX operator developed here is based on the probability distribution of children strings
in a single-point crossover. Similar probability distributions (a function of the spread factor
 ) can also be obtained for multi-point and uniform crossovers and other similar real-coded
crossovers can be designed. Probability distributions similar to the one developed here are
expected, it may be interesting to investigate whether they turn out otherwise. Depending
on the outcome of that analysis, the issue of superiority of one crossover over other can be
resolved, particularly in the context of GA's application to continuous variables.
Throughout in this study, reasonable values of the population size are used. As demon-
strated elsewhere (Goldberg, Deb, and Clark, 1992), the proper population sizing is important
for successful working of GAs. That study also suggested a population sizing based on the
ratio of the dierence in detectable function values to the variance of the function. An attempt
can be made to derive a population sizing for real-coded GAs from a similar viewpoint. In
binary-coded GAs, the major diculty towards achieving a convergence proof lies in the me-
chanics of the crossover operator. Although the mechanics of the single-point crossover (or for
that matter any other binary crossover operator) is simple, their mathematical modeling be-
comes dicult. Any convergence proof of a stochastic process involves calculation of transition
probabilities. Since in the SBX operator, a direct probability distribution of children points
for any given pair of parent points is used, the proof of convergence of genetic algorithms may
become easier.
The success of binary GAs in many single-objective, unimodal problems has led researchers
to extend GA's applicability to other types of optimization problems|multimodal and mul-
tiobjective function optimization problems. In order to nd multiple optimal solutions simul-
taneously, sharing functions are used to create articial tness values, which are used in the

30
reproduction operator (Deb, 1989; Goldberg and Richardson, 1987). In order to nd multiple
Pareto optimal points for multiobjective function optimization, the concept of nondomination
is used to create articial tness values, which are again used in the reproduction operator
(Srinivas and Deb, in press). Since only reproduction operator needs modication to solve the
above problems, similar reproduction techniques can be used along with the SBX operator used
in this study to investigate the ecacy of real-coded GAs in multimodal and multiobjective
problems dened on a continuous search space.

7 Conclusions
In this paper, a real-coded crossover operator has been developed based on the search char-
acteristics of a single-point crossover used in binary-coded GAs. In order to dene the search
power of a crossover operator, a spread factor has been introduced as the ratio of the absolute
dierences of the children points to that of the parent points. Thereafter, the probability of cre-
ating a child point for two given parent points has been derived for the single-point crossover.
Motivated by the success of binary-coded GAs in problems with discrete search space, simu-
lated binary crossover (SBX) operator has been developed to solve problems having continuous
search space. The SBX operator has similar search power as that of the single-point crossover.
On a number of test functions including De Jong's ve test functions, it has been found
that real-coded GAs with the SBX operator can overcome a number of diculties inherent
with binary-coded GAs in solving continuous search space problems|Hamming cli problem,
arbitrary precision problem, and xed mapped coding problem. In the comparison of real-coded
GAs with SBX operator and binary-coded GAs with single-point crossover operator, it has been
observed that the performance of the former is better than the latter on continuous functions
and the performance of the former is similar to the latter in solving discrete and dicult
functions. In comparison with another real-coded crossover operator (BLX-0.5) suggested
elsewhere, SBX performs better in dicult test functions. It has also been observed that SBX
is particularly useful in problems where the bounds of the optimum point is not known a priori
and where there are multiple optima, of which one is global.
Real-coded GAs with the SBX operator have been also attempted to solve a two-variable
blocked function (the concept of blocked functions were introduced by Goldberg (1991)).
Blocked functions are dicult for real-coded GAs, because local optimal points block the
progress of search to continue towards the global optimal point. The simulation results on
the two-variable blocked function have shown that in most occasions, the search proceeds the
way as predicted by Goldberg. Most importantly, it has been observed that the real-coded
GAs with SBX works similar to that of the binary-coded GAs with single-point crossover in
overcoming the barrier of the local peaks and converge to the global basin. However, it is
premature to conclude whether real-coded GAs with SBX operator can overcome the local
barriers in higher-dimensional blocked functions.
These results are encouraging and suggest avenues for further research. Because the SBX
operator uses a probability distribution for choosing a child point, the real-coded GAs with

31
SBX are one step ahead of the binary-coded GAs in terms of achieving a convergence proof
for GAs. With a direct probabilistic relationship between children and parent points used in
this paper, cues from the classical stochastic optimization methods can be borrowed to achieve
a convergence proof of GAs, or a much closer tie between the classical optimization methods
and genetic algorithms is on the horizon.

Acknowledgment
This work is funded by the Department of Science and Technology, New Delhi under grant
SR/SY/E-06/93.

References
Aarts, E. and Korst, J. (1989). Simulated annealing and Boltzmann machines: A stochastic
approach to combinatorial optimization and neural computing. Chichester: Wiley.
Back, T., Homeister, F., and Schwefel, H-P. (1991). A survey of evolution strategies. In R.
K. Belew and L. B. Booker (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on
Genetic Algorithms (pp. 2{9).
Booker, L. B. (1993). Recombination distribution for GAs. In D. Whitley (Ed.), Foundations
of Genetic Algorithms (pp. 29{44).
Davis, L. (1991). Bit-climbing, representational bias, and test suite design. In R. K. Belew,
& L. B. Booker (Eds.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Genetic
Algorithms (pp. 18{23).
De Jong, K. A. (1975). An analysis of the behavior of a class of genetic adaptive systems
(Doctoral dissertation, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor). Dissertation Abstracts Inter-
national, 36(10), 5140B. (University Microlms No. 76-9381)
Deb, K. (1989). Genetic algorithms in multimodal function optimization, Master's Thesis,
(TCGA Report No. 89002). Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama.
Eshelman, L. J. and Schaer, J. D. (1993). Real-coded genetic algorithms and interval
schemata. In D. Whitley (Ed.), Foundations of Genetic Algorithms, II (pp. 187{202).
Goldberg, D. E. (1989). Genetic algorithms in search, optimization, and machine learning.
Reading: Addison-Wesley.
Goldberg, D. E. (1991). Real-coded genetic algorithms, virtual alphabets, and blocking.
Complex Systems, 5(2), 139{168. (Also IlliGAL Report 90001)
Goldberg, D. E., Deb, K., and Clark, J. H. (1992). Genetic algorithms, noise, and the sizing
of populations. Complex Systems, 6, 333{362.

32
Goldberg, D. E., Deb. K., Kargupta, H, and Harik, G. (1993). Rapid, accurate optimization
of dicult problems using messy genetic algorithms. In S. Forrest (Ed.), Proceedings of
the Fifth International Conference on Genetic Algorithms (pp. 56{64).
Goldberg, D. E., Korb, B., and Deb, K. (1989). Messy genetic algorithms: Motivation,
analysis, and rst results, Complex Systems, 3, 93{530.
Goldberg, D. E., and Richardson, J. (1987). Genetic algorithms with sharing for multimodal
function optimization. In J. J. Grefenstette (Ed.), Proceedings of the Second International
Conference on Genetic Algorithms (pp. 41{49).
Gordon, V. S. and Whitley, D. (1993). Serial and parallel genetic algorithms as function
optimizers. In S. Forrest (Ed.), Proceedings of the Fifth International Conference on
Genetic Algorithms (pp. 177{183).
Kargupta, H., Deb, K., and Goldberg, D. E. (1992). Ordering genetic algorithms and decep-
tion. In R. Manner and B. Manderick (Eds.), Parallel Problem Solving from Nature II
(pp 47{56).
Muhlenbein, H., Schomisch, M., and Born, J. (1991). The parallel genetic algorithms as
function optimizer. In R. K. Belew and L. B. Booker (Eds.) Proceedings of the Fourth
International Conference on Genetic Algorithms (pp. 271{278).
Radclie, N. J. (1991). Forma analysis and random respectful recombination. In R. K. Belew
and L. B. Booker (Eds.) Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Genetic
Algorithms (pp. 222{229).
Radclie, N. J. (1993). Genetic set recombination. In D. Whitley (Ed.) Foundations of
Genetic Algorithms II (pp. 203{219).
Rechenberg, I. (1973). Evolutionstrategie: Optmierung technisher Systeme nach Prinzipien
der biologischen Evolution. Stuttgurt: Frommann-Holzboog Verlag.
Srinivas, N. and Deb, K. (in press). Multiobjective function optimization using nondominated
sorting genetic algorithms, Evolutionary Computation, MIT Press.
Syswerda, G. (1989). Uniform crossover in genetic algorithms. In J. D. Schaer (Ed.),
Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Genetic Algorithms (pp. 2{9).
Wright, A. (1991). Genetic algorithms for real parameter optimization. In G. J. E. Rawlins
(Ed.), Foundations of Genetic Algorithms. (pp.205{220).

33