Appropriate Combination of Crossover Operator and Mutation Operator in Genetic Algorithms for the Travelling Salesman Problem

Genetic algorithms(GAs)are very good metaheuristic algorithms that are suitable for solving NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems.AsimpleGAbeginswith a set of solutions represented by a population of chromosomes and then uses the idea of survival of the fittest in the selection process to select some fitter chromosomes.It uses a crossover operator to create better offspring chromosomes and thus,converges the population.Also,it uses a mutation operator to explore the unexplored areas by the crossover operator,and thus,diversifies the GA search space.A combination of crossover and mutation operators makes the GA search strong enough to reach the optimal solution.However,appropriate selection and combination of crossover operator and mutation operator can lead to a very good GA for solving an optimization problem.In this present paper,we aim to study the benchmark traveling salesman problem(TSP).We developed several genetic algorithms using seven crossover operators and six mutation operators for the TSP and then compared them to some benchmark TSPLIB instances.The experimental studies show the effectiveness of the combination of a comprehensive sequential constructive crossover operator and insertion mutation operator for the problem.The GA using the comprehensive sequential constructive crossover with insertion mutation could find average solutions whose average percentage of excesses from the best-known solutions are between 0.22 and 14.94 for our experimented problem instances.

Topological optimization of ballistic protective structures through genetic algorithms in a vulnerability-driven environment

Reducing the vulnerability of a platform,i.e.,the risk of being affected by hostile objects,is of paramount importance in the design process of vehicles,especially aircraft.A simple and effective way to decrease vulnerability is to introduce protective structures to intercept and possibly stop threats.However,this type of solution can lead to a significant increase in weight,affecting the performance of the aircraft.For this reason,it is crucial to study possible solutions that allow reducing the vulnerability of the aircraft while containing the increase in structural weight.One possible strategy is to optimize the topology of protective solutions to find the optimal balance between vulnerability and the weight of the added structures.Among the many optimization techniques available in the literature for this purpose,multiobjective genetic algorithms stand out as promising tools.In this context,this work proposes the use of a in-house software for vulnerability calculation to guide the process of topology optimization through multi-objective genetic algorithms,aiming to simultaneously minimize the weight of protective structures and vulnerability.In addition to the use of the in-house software,which itself represents a novelty in the field of topology optimization of structures,the method incorporates a custom mutation function within the genetic algorithm,specifically developed using a graph-based approach to ensure the continuity of the generated structures.The tool developed for this work is capable of generating protections with optimized layouts considering two different types of impacting objects,namely bullets and fragments from detonating objects.The software outputs a set of non-dominated solutions describing different topologies that the user can choose from.

Solar Radiation Estimation Based on a New Combined Approach of Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and Genetic Algorithms (GA) in South Algeria

When designing solar systems and assessing the effectiveness of their many uses,estimating sun irradiance is a crucial first step.This study examined three approaches(ANN,GA-ANN,and ANFIS)for estimating daily global solar radiation(GSR)in the south of Algeria:Adrar,Ouargla,and Bechar.The proposed hybrid GA-ANN model,based on genetic algorithm-based optimization,was developed to improve the ANN model.The GA-ANN and ANFIS models performed better than the standalone ANN-based model,with GA-ANN being better suited for forecasting in all sites,and it performed the best with the best values in the testing phase of Coefficient of Determination(R=0.9005),Mean Absolute Percentage Error(MAPE=8.40%),and Relative Root Mean Square Error(rRMSE=12.56%).Nevertheless,the ANFIS model outperformed the GA-ANN model in forecasting daily GSR,with the best values of indicators when testing the model being R=0.9374,MAPE=7.78%,and rRMSE=10.54%.Generally,we may conclude that the initial ANN stand-alone model performance when forecasting solar radiation has been improved,and the results obtained after injecting the genetic algorithm into the ANN to optimize its weights were satisfactory.The model can be used to forecast daily GSR in dry climates and other climates and may also be helpful in selecting solar energy system installations and sizes.

Combining the genetic algorithms with artificial neural networks for optimization of board allocating

This paper introduced the Genetic Algorithms (GAs) and Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs), which have been widely used in optimization of allocating. The combination way of the two optimizing algorithms was used in board allocating of furniture production. In the experiment, the rectangular flake board of 3650 mm 1850 mm was used as raw material to allocate 100 sets of Table Bucked. The utilizing rate of the board reached 94.14 % and the calculating time was only 35 s. The experiment result proofed that the method by using the GA for optimizing the weights of the ANN can raise the utilizing rate of the board and can shorten the time of the design. At the same time, this method can simultaneously searched in many directions, thus greatly in-creasing the probability of finding a global optimum.

APPROXIMATION TECHNIQUES FOR APPLICATION OF GENETIC ALGORITHMS TO STRUCTURAL OPTIMIZATION

Although the genetic algorithm (GA) has very powerful robustness and fitness, it needs a large size of population and a large number of iterations to reach the optimum result. Especially when GA is used in complex structural optimization problems, if the structural reanalysis technique is not adopted, the more the number of finite element analysis (FEA) is, the more the consuming time is. In the conventional structural optimization the number of FEA can be reduced by the structural reanalysis technique based on the approximation techniques and sensitivity analysis. With these techniques, this paper provides a new approximation model-segment approximation model, adopted for the GA application. This segment approximation model can decrease the number of FEA and increase the convergence rate of GA. So it can apparently decrease the computation time of GA. Two examples demonstrate the availability of the new segment approximation model.

DENSE DISPARITY MAP ESTIMATION USING GENETIC ALGORITHMS

An approach to addressing the stereo correspondence problem is presented using genetic algorithms (GAs) to obtain a dense disparity map. Different from previous methods, this approach casts the stereo matching as a multi-extrema optimization problem such that finding the fittest solution from a set of potential disparity maps. Among a wide variety of optimization techniques, GAs are proven to be potentially effective methods for the global optimization problems with large search space. With this idea, each disparity map is viewed as an individual and the disparity values are encoded as chromosomes, so each individual has lots of chromosomes in the approach. Then, several matching constraints are formulated into an objective function, and GAs are used to search the global optimal solution for the problem. Furthermore, the coarse-to-fine strategy has been embedded in the approach so as to reduce the matching ambiguity and the time consumption. Finally, experimental results on synthetic and real images show the performance of the work.

Interactive Genetic Algorithms with Fitness Adjustment

Noises widely exist in interactive genetic algorithms. However, there is no effective method to solve this problem up to now. There are two kinds of noises, one is the noise existing in visual systems and the other is resulted from user’s preference mechanisms. Characteristics of the two noises are presented aiming at the application of interac- tive genetic algorithms in dealing with images. The evolutionary phases of interactive genetic algorithms are determined according to differences in the same individual’s fitness among different generations. Models for noises in different phases are established and the corresponding strategies for reducing noises are given. The algorithm proposed in this paper has been applied to fashion design, which is a typical example of image processing. The results show that the strategies can reduce noises in interactive genetic algorithms and improve the algorithm’s performance effectively. However, a further study is needed to solve the problem of determining the evolution phase by using suitable objective methods so as to find out an effective method to decrease noises.

Research on Modified Shifting Balance Genetic Algorithms

The increasing overlap of core and colony populations during the anaphase of evolution may limit the performance of shifting balance genetic algorithms. To decrease such overlapping,so as to increase the local search capability of the core population,the sub-space method was used to generate uniformly distributed initial colony populations over the decision variable space. The core population was also dynamically divided,making simultaneous searching in several local spaces possible. The algorithm proposed in this paper was compared to the original one by searching for the optimum of a complicated multi-modal function. The results indicate that the solutions obtained by the modified algorithm are better than those of the original algorithm.

Parallel Optimization of Program Instructions Using Genetic Algorithms

This paper describes an efficient solution to parallelize softwareprogram instructions, regardless of the programming language in which theyare written. We solve the problem of the optimal distribution of a set ofinstructions on available processors. We propose a genetic algorithm to parallelize computations, using evolution to search the solution space. The stagesof our proposed genetic algorithm are: The choice of the initial populationand its representation in chromosomes, the crossover, and the mutation operations customized to the problem being dealt with. In this paper, geneticalgorithms are applied to the entire search space of the parallelization ofthe program instructions problem. This problem is NP-complete, so thereare no polynomial algorithms that can scan the solution space and solve theproblem. The genetic algorithm-based method is general and it is simple andefficient to implement because it can be scaled to a larger or smaller number ofinstructions that must be parallelized. The parallelization technique proposedin this paper was developed in the C# programming language, and our resultsconfirm the effectiveness of our parallelization method. Experimental resultsobtained and presented for different working scenarios confirm the theoreticalresults, and they provide insight on how to improve the exploration of a searchspace that is too large to be searched exhaustively.

Multisensor Fuzzy Stochastic Fusion Based on Genetic Algorithms

To establish a parallel fusion approach of processing high dimensional information, the model and criterion of multisensor fuzzy stochastic data fusion were presented. In order to design genetic algorithm fusion, the fusion parameter coding, initial population and fitness function establishing, and fuzzy logic controller designing for genetic operations and probability choosing were completed. The discussion on the highly dimensional fusion was given. For a moving target with the division of 1 64 (velocity) and 1 75 (acceleration), the precision of fusion is 0 94 and 0 98 respectively. The fusion approach can improve the reliability and decision precision effectively.

Forward and backward models for fault diagnosis based on parallel genetic algorithms

In this paper, a mathematical model consisting of forward and backward models is built on parallel genetic algorithms (PGAs) for fault diagnosis in a transmission power system. A new method to reduce the scale of fault sections is developed in the forward model and the message passing interface (MPI) approach is chosen to parallel the genetic algorithms by global sin-gle-population master-slave method (GPGAs). The proposed approach is applied to a sample system consisting of 28 sections, 84 protective relays and 40 circuit breakers. Simulation results show that the new model based on GPGAs can achieve very fast computation in online applications of large-scale power systems.

A Hybrid Immigrants Scheme for Genetic Algorithms in Dynamic Environments

Dynamic optimization problems are a kind of optimization problems that involve changes over time. They pose a serious challenge to traditional optimization methods as well as conventional genetic algorithms since the goal is no longer to search for the optimal solution（s） of a fixed problem but to track the moving optimum over time. Dynamic optimization problems have attracted a growing interest from the genetic algorithm community in recent years. Several approaches have been developed to enhance the performance of genetic algorithms in dynamic environments. One approach is to maintain the diversity of the population via random immigrants. This paper proposes a hybrid immigrants scheme that combines the concepts of elitism, dualism and random immigrants for genetic algorithms to address dynamic optimization problems. In this hybrid scheme, the best individual, i.e., the elite, from the previous generation and its dual individual are retrieved as the bases to create immigrants via traditional mutation scheme. These elitism-based and dualism-based immigrants together with some random immigrants are substituted into the current population, replacing the worst individuals in the population. These three kinds of immigrants aim to address environmental changes of slight, medium and significant degrees respectively and hence efficiently adapt genetic algorithms to dynamic environments that are subject to different severities of changes. Based on a series of systematically constructed dynamic test problems, experiments are carried out to investigate the performance of genetic algorithms with the hybrid immigrants scheme and traditional random immigrants scheme. Experimental results validate the efficiency of the proposed hybrid immigrants scheme for improving the performance of genetic algorithms in dynamic environments.

Simultaneous scheduling of machines and automated guided vehicles in flexible manufacturing systems using genetic algorithms

The problem of simultaneous scheduling of machines and vehicles in flexible manufacturing system (FMS) was addressed.A spreadsheet based genetic algorithm (GA) approach was presented to solve the problem.A domain independent general purpose GA was used,which was an add-in to the spreadsheet software.An adaptation of the propritary GA software was demonstrated to the problem of minimizing the total completion time or makespan for simultaneous scheduling of machines and vehicles in flexible manufacturing systems.Computational results are presented for a benchmark with 82 test problems,which have been constructed by other researchers.The achieved results are comparable to the previous approaches.The proposed approach can be also applied to other problems or objective functions without changing the GA routine or the spreadsheet model.

Optimization of perforation distribution for horizontal wells based on genetic algorithms

Early water breakthrough and a rapid increase in water cut are always observed in high- permeability completion intervals when perforations are uniformly distributed in the wellbore in heterogeneous reservoirs. Optimization of perforating parameters in partitioned sections in horizontal intervals helps homogenize the inflow from the reservoir and thus is critically important for enhanced oil recovery. This paper derives a coupled reservoir-wellbore flow model based on inflow controlling theory. Genetic algorithms are applied to solving the model as they excel in obtaining the global optimum of discrete functions. The optimized perforating strategy applies a low perforation density in high- permeability intervals and a high perforation density in low-permeability intervals. As a result, the inflow profile is homogenized and idealized.

Analysis of the diversity of population and convergence of genetic algorithms based on Negentropy

With its wide use in different fields, the problem of the convergence of simple genetic algorithms (GAs) has been concerned. In the past, the research on the convergence of GAs was based on Holland's model theorem. The diversity of the evolutionary population and the convergence of GAs are studied by using the concept of negentropy based on the discussion of the characteristic of GA. Some test functions are used to test the convergence of GAs, and good results have been obtained. It is shown that the global optimization may be obtained by selecting appropriate parameters of simple GAs if the evolution time is enough.

Edge Crossing Minimization Algorithm for Hierarchical Graphs Based on Genetic Algorithms

We present an edge crossing minimization algorithm for hierarchical graphs based on genetic algorithms, and comparing it with some heuristic algorithms. The proposed algorithm is more efficient and has the following advantages: the frame of the algorithms is unified, the method is simple, and its implementation and revision are easy.

Family genetic algorithms based on gene exchange and its application

Genetic Algorithms （GA） are a search techniques based on mechanics of nature selection and have already been successfully applied in many diverse areas. However, increasing samples show that GA＇s performance is not as good as it was expected to be. Criticism of this algorithm includes the slow speed and premature result during convergence procedure. In order to improve the performance, the population size and individuals＇ space is emphatically described. The influence of individuals＇ space and population size on the operators is analyzed. And a novel family genetic algorithm （FGA） is put forward based on this analysis. In this novel algorithm, the optimum solution families closed to quality individuals is constructed, which is exchanged found by a search in the world space. Search will be done in this microspace. The family that can search better genes in a limited period of time would win a new life. At the same time, the best gene of this micro space with the basic population in the world space is exchanged. Finally, the FGA is applied to the function optimization and image matching through several experiments. The results show that the FGA possessed high performance.

Surrogate model-assisted interactive genetic algorithms with individual’s fuzzy and stochastic fitness

We propose a surrogate model-assisted algorithm by using a directed fuzzy graph to extract a user’s cognition on evaluated individuals in order to alleviate user fatigue in interactive genetic algorithms with an individual’s fuzzy and stochastic fitness. We firstly present an approach to construct a directed fuzzy graph of an evolutionary population according to individuals’ dominance relations, cut-set levels and interval dominance probabilities, and then calculate an individual’s crisp fitness based on the out-degree and in-degree of the fuzzy graph. The approach to obtain training data is achieved using the fuzzy entropy of the evolutionary system to guarantee the credibilities of the samples which are used to train the surrogate model. We adopt a support vector regression machine as the surrogate model and train it using the sampled individuals and their crisp fitness. Then the surrogate model is optimized using the traditional genetic algorithm for some generations, and some good individuals are submitted to the user for the subsequent evolutions so as to guide and accelerate the evolution. Finally, we quantitatively analyze the performance of the presented algorithm in alleviating user fatigue and increasing more opportunities to find the satisfactory individuals, and also apply our algorithm to a fashion evolutionary design system to demonstrate its efficiency.

The Application of Genetic Algorithms and Multidimensional Distinguishing Model in Forecasting and Evaluating Credits for Mobile Clients

To solve the arrearage problem that puzzled most of the mobile corporations, we propose an approach to forecast and evaluate the credits for mobile clients, devising a method that is of the coalescence of genetic algorithm and multidimensional distinguishing model. In the end of this paper, a result of a testing application in Zhuhai Branch, GMCC was provided. The precision of the forecasting and evaluation of the client’s credit is near 90%. This study is very significant to the mobile communication corporation at all levels. The popularization of the techniques and the result would produce great benefits of both society and economy.

Niche pseudo-parallel genetic algorithms for path optimization of autonomous mobile robot

A new genetic algorithm named niche pseudo-parallel genetic algorithm （NPPGA） is presented for path evolution and genetic optimization of autonomous mobile robot. The NPPGA is an effective improvement to maintain the population diversity as well for the sake of avoiding premature and strengthen parallelism of the population to accelerate the search process combined with niche genetic algorithms and pseudo-parallel genetic algorithms. The proposed approach is evaluated by robotic path optimization, which is a specific application of traveler salesman problem （TSP）. Experimental results indicated that a shortest path could be obtained in the practical traveling salesman problem named ＂Robot tour around Pekin＂, and the performance conducted by NPPGA is better than simple genetic algorithm （SGA） and distributed paralell genetic algorithms （DPGA）.