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Evolutionary design of Evolutionary Algorithms

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Abstract

Manual design of Evolutionary Algorithms (EAs) capable of performing very well on a wide range of problems is a difficult task. This is why we have to find other manners to construct algorithms that perform very well on some problems. One possibility (which is explored in this paper) is to let the evolution discover the optimal structure and parameters of the EA used for solving a specific problem. To this end a new model for automatic generation of EAs by evolutionary means is proposed here. The model is based on a simple Genetic Algorithm (GA). Every GA chromosome encodes an EA, which is used for solving a particular problem. Several Evolutionary Algorithms for function optimization are generated by using the considered model. Numerical experiments show that the EAs perform similarly and sometimes even better than standard approaches for several well-known benchmarking problems.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by grant IDEI-543 from CNCSIS.

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Correspondence to Laura Dioşan.

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Dioşan, L., Oltean, M. Evolutionary design of Evolutionary Algorithms. Genet Program Evolvable Mach 10, 263–306 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10710-009-9081-6

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