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Genetic Algorithms

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Genetic Algorithms

Uploaded by

jayantimisra36
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© © All Rights Reserved
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Genetic Algorithms

Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are adaptive heuristic search algorithms that belong to the larger
part of evolutionary algorithms. Genetic algorithms are based on the ideas of natural selection
and genetics. These are intelligent exploitation of random search provided with historical
data to direct the search into the region of better performance in solution space. They are
commonly used to generate high-quality solutions for optimization problems and search
problems.
Genetic algorithms simulate the process of natural selection which means those species
who can adapt to changes in their environment are able to survive and reproduce and go to
next generation. In simple words, they simulate “survival of the fittest” among individual of
consecutive generation for solving a problem. Each generation consist of a population of
individuals and each individual represents a point in search space and possible solution.
Each individual is represented as a string of character/integer/float/bits. This string is
analogous to the Chromosome.

Foundation of Genetic Algorithms


Genetic algorithms are based on an analogy with genetic structure and behaviour of
chromosomes of the population. Following is the foundation of GAs based on this analogy –
1. Individual in population compete for resources and mate
2. Those individuals who are successful (fittest) then mate to create more offspring
than others
3. Genes from “fittest” parent propagate throughout the generation, that is
sometimes parents create offspring which is better than either parent.
4. Thus each successive generation is more suited for their environment.

Search space
The population of individuals are maintained within search space. Each individual represents
a solution in search space for given problem. Each individual is coded as a finite length vector
(analogous to chromosome) of components. These variable components are analogous to
Genes. Thus a chromosome (individual) is composed of several genes (variable
components).
Fitness Score
A Fitness Score is given to each individual which shows the ability of an individual to
“compete”. The individual having optimal fitness score (or near optimal) are sought. The
GAs maintains the population of n individuals (chromosome/solutions) along with their
fitness scores.The individuals having better fitness scores are given more chance to reproduce
than others. The individuals with better fitness scores are selected who mate and
produce better offspring by combining chromosomes of parents. The population size is
static so the room has to be created for new arrivals. So, some individuals die and get replaced
by new arrivals eventually creating new generation when all the mating opportunity of the
old population is exhausted. It is hoped that over successive generations better solutions will
arrive while least fit die.

Each new generation has on average more “better genes” than the individual (solution) of
previous generations. Thus each new generations have better “partial solutions” than
previous generations. Once the offspring produced having no significant difference from
offspring produced by previous populations, the population is converged. The algorithm is
said to be converged to a set of solutions for the problem.

Operators of Genetic Algorithms


Once the initial generation is created, the algorithm evolves the generation using following
operators

1) Selection Operator: The idea is to give preference to the individuals with good fitness
scores and allow them to pass their genes to successive generations.

2) Crossover Operator: This represents mating between individuals. Two individuals are
selected using selection operator and crossover sites are chosen randomly. Then the genes at
these crossover sites are exchanged thus creating a completely new individual (offspring).
For example –
3) Mutation Operator: The key idea is to insert random genes in offspring to maintain the
diversity in the population to avoid premature convergence. For example –

The whole algorithm can be summarized as –

1) Randomly initialize populations p


2) Determine fitness of population
3) Until convergence repeat:
a) Select parents from population
b) Crossover and generate new population
c) Perform mutation on new population
d) Calculate fitness for new population

Why use Genetic Algorithms


• They are Robust
• Provide optimisation over large space state.
• Unlike traditional AI, they do not break on slight change in input or presence of
noise
•
Application of Genetic Algorithms
Genetic algorithms have many applications, some of them are –
• Recurrent Neural Network
• Mutation testing
• Code breaking
• Filtering and signal processing
• Learning fuzzy rule base etc

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