Module VI

Genetic Algorithm
 Genetic Algorithm(GA)

• a search-based optimization technique based on

the principles of Genetics and Natural Selection.
• used to find optimal or near-optimal solutions to
difficult problems which otherwise would take a
lifetime to solve.
• used to solve optimization problems, in research,
and in machine learning.
• GAs are based on Darwin’s theory of evolution.
• According to the principle of “Survival of the fittest”
What is Optimization

• Optimization is the process of making something

better.
• In any process, we have a set of inputs and a set of
outputs
• Optimization refers to finding the values of inputs
in such a way that we get the “best” output values.
• The set of all possible solutions or values which the
inputs can take make up the search space.
• In this search space, lies a point or a set of points
which gives the optimal solution.
• The aim of optimization is to find that point or set
of points in the search space.
History of GAs

• Evolutionary computing evolved in 1960s

• Developed by John Holland in mid 1970s
Genetic Algorithm (1) – Search Space

 Most often one is looking for the best

solution in a specific subset of
solutions. 2.5

 This subset is called the search

space (or state space).
2

 Every point in the search space is a 1.5

possible solution.
 Therefore every point has a fitness 1

value, depending on the problem

0.5

definition.
 GAs are used to search the search 0
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900 1000

space for the best solution, e.g. a

minimum.
 Difficulties are the local minima and
the starting point of the search.
The maximum or minimum over the entire function is called an
"Absolute" or "Global" maximum or minimum.
• a local minimum is:
• f(a) ≤ f(x) for all x in the interval.
• There is only one global maximum (and one global
minimum) but there can be more than one local maximum
or minimum.
Genetic Algorithm (2) – Basic Algorithm
 Starting with a subset of n randomly chosen solutions from the
search space (i.e. chromosomes).
This is the population.

 This population is used to produce a next generation of

individuals by reproduction.

 Individuals with a higher fitness have more chance to reproduce

(i.e. natural selection).
Basic Terminologies in GA’s

• The two distinct elements in the GA

• individuals and populations.
• An individual is a single solution
• The population is the set of individuals currently involved in
the search process.
Individuals
• An individual is a single solution.
• The chromosome which is the raw "genetic" information
(genotype) that the GA deals.
• A chromosome is subdivided into genes.
• A Gene is a bit string of arbitrary lengths.
• The bit string is a binary representation of number of
intervals from a lower bound.
• A bit string of length "n" can represent (2n - 1) intervals.
 The fitness of an individual in a GA is the value of an objective
function for its phenotype.
 For calculating fitness, the chromosome has to be first decoded
and the objective function has to be evaluated.
 The fitness not only indicates how good the solution is, but also
corresponds to how close the chromosome is to the optimal one.
Genetic Algorithm (3) – Basic Algorithm

Outline of the basic algorithm

0 START : Create random population of n chromosomes

1 FITNESS : Evaluate fitness f(x) of each chromosome in the
population
2 NEW POPULATION
1 REPRODUCTION/SELECTION : Based on f(x)
2 CROSS OVER : Cross-over chromosomes
3 MUTATION : Mutate chromosomes

3 REPLACE : Replace old with new population: the new generation

4 TEST : Test problem criterium
5 LOOP : Continue step 1 – 4 untill criterium is satisfied
Each iteration consists of the following steps:
• Selection: The first step consists in selecting individuals for
reproduction.
• This selection is done randomly with a probability depending
on the relative fitness of the individuals so that best ones are
often chosen for reproduction rather than the poor ones.
• Reproduction: In the second step, offspring are bred by
selected individuals.
• For generating new chromosomes, the algorithm can use
both recombination and mutation.
• Evaluation: Then the fitness of the new chromosomes is
evaluated.
• Replacement: During the last step, individuals from the old
population are killed and replaced by the new ones.
 Start

Initial population

Selection
• All individuals in population
evaluated by fitness function.

Cross Over Evolution

• Individuals allowed to
Mutation reproduce (selection),
crossover, mutate.

Termi
No
nate

yes
Best Individuals
Flowchart of GA
Output

Stop
Operators in Genetic
Algorithm
So..

Encoding
Selection
Cross Over (Recombination)
Mutation Operators
Encoding
• Encoding is a process of representing individual genes.
• The process can be performed using bits, numbers, trees,
arrays, lists or any other objects.
• The encoding depends mainly on solving the problem.
• For example, one can encode directly real or integer
numbers.
Different Encodings

• Binary Encoding
• Octal Encoding
• Hexadecimal Encoding
• Permutation Encoding(Real Number Encoding)
• Value Encoding
• Tree Encoding
Binary Encoding
• The most common way of encoding is a binary string, which
would be represented as

• Each chromosome encodes a binary (bit) string.

• Each bit in the string can represent some characteristics of
the solution.
• Every bit string therefore is a solution but not necessarily
the best solution.
• The way bit strings can code differs from problem to
• Binary encoding gives many possible chromosomes with a
smaller number of alleles.
• Binary coded strings with Is and Os are mostly used.
• The length of the string depends on the accuracy. In such
coding
1. Integers are represented exactly.
2. Finite number of real numbers can be represented.
3. Number of real numbers represented increases with
string length.
Octal Encoding

• This encoding uses string made up of octal numbers (0-7)

• Hexadecimal Encoding

• This encoding uses string made up of hexadecimal

numbers (0-9, A-F)
Permutation Encoding (Real Number Coding)
• Every chromosome is a string of numbers, represented
in a sequence.
• Sometimes corrections have to be done after generic
operation is complete.
• In permutation encoding, every chromosome is a string of
integer/real values, which represents number in a
sequence.
Value Encoding
• Every chromosome is a string of values .
• The values can be anything connected with the problem-
number ,real numbers or characters.
• This encoding produces best results for some special
problems
Tree Encoding
• This encoding is mainly used for evolving program
expressions for genetic programming.
• Every chromosome is a tree of some objects such as
functions and commands of a programming language.
Selection
• Selection is the process of choosing two parents from the
population for crossing.
• After deciding on an encoding, the next step is to decide
how to perform selection,
• ie, how to choose individuals in the population that
will create offspring for the next generation
• how many offspring each will create.
• The purpose of selection is to emphasize fitter individuals
in the-population in hopes that their offspring have higher
fitness.
• Chromosomes are selected from the initial population to be
parents for reproduction.
• The problem is how to select these chromosomes.
• According to Darwin's theory of evolution the best ones
survive to create new offspring
• Two types of selection scheme-

Proportionate-based selection
 Ordinal based selection.
• Proportionate-based selection picks out individuals based
upon their fitness values relative to the fitness of the other
individuals in the population.
• Ordinal-based selection schemes select individuals not upon
their raw fitness, but upon their rank within the population.
• This requires that the selection pressure is
 independent of the fitness distribution of the population,
 and is solely based upon the relative ordering (ranking) of the
population.
• The various selection methods
• Roulette Wheel Selection
• Random Selection
• Rank Selection
• Tournament Selection
• Boltzmann Selection
Roulette Wheel Selection
• The principle of Roulette selection is a linear search through a Roulette
wheel.
• Each individual is assigned a slice of the Roulette wheel.
• The size of the slice being proportional to the individual's fitness.
• The wheel is spun N times, where N is the number of individuals in the
population.
• On each spin, the individual under the wheel's marker is selected to be in
the pool of parents for the next generation.
• A target value(marker) is set, which is a random proportion of the sum
of the fitnesses in the population.
Implementation

The expected value of an individual (probability)

= individual's fitness /actual fitness of the population.
Implementation
1. Sum the total expected value of the individuals in the
population. Let it be T
2. Repeat N times:
i. Choose a random integer "r" between 0 and T.
ii. Loop through the individuals in the population,
summing the expected values, until the sum is greater than or
equal to "r."
 The individual whose expected value puts the sum
over this limit is the one selected.
•Roulette wheel selection is easier to implement.
Disadvantage
• noisy
•Fit individuals are not guaranteed to be selected for, but
somewhat have a greater chance.
• A fit individual will contribute more the target value.
• The next chromosome in line has a chance, and it may be
weak.
Algorithm: ROULETTEWHEELSELECTION()
r := random number, where 0 ≤ r < 1;
sum := 0;
for each individual i
{ sum := sum + P(choice = i);
if r < sum
{ return i;
}
}
Random Selection
• This technique randomly selects a parent from the
population.
• In terms of disruption of generic codes, random selection is
a little more disruptive,
• therefore this strategy is usually avoided.
Rank Selection

• A problem with the Roulette wheel is that

• If the best chromosome fitness is 90%, its circumference
occupies 90% of Roulette wheel, and then other
chromosomes have too few chances to be selected.
• Rank Selection ranks the population and every chromosome
receives fitness from the ranking.
• The worst has fitness 1 and the best has fitness N.
• It results in slow convergence but prevents too quick
convergence.
• It also keeps up selection pressure when the fitness
variance is low.
• It preserves diversity and hence leads to a successful search.

• The selection of the parents depends on the rank of each

individual .
• The higher ranked individuals are preferred more than the
lower ranked ones.
Tournament Selection

• An ideal selection strategy should be such that it is able to

adjust its selective pressure and population diversity
• The tournament selection strategy provides selective
pressure by holding a tournament competition among Nu
individuals.
• The best individual from the tournament is the one with the
highest fitness, who is the winner of Nu
• In effect, potential parents are selected and a tournament
is held to decide which of the individuals will be the parent
• There are many ways this can be achieved and two
suggestions are:
1.Select a pair of individuals at random. Generate a random
number R between 0 and 1.
If R < r use the first individual as a parent.
If the R >= r then use the second individual as the parent.
This is repeated to select the second parent.
The value of r is a parameter to this method.
2. Select two individuals at random. The individual with the
highest evaluation becomes the parent. Repeat to find a
second parent
• Tournament competitions and the winner are then inserted
into the mating pool.
• The tournament competition is repeated until the mating
pool for generating new offspring is filled.
• The mating pool comprising the tournament winner has
higher average population fitness.
• The fitness difference provides the selection pressure,
• which drives GA to improve the fitness of the
succeeding genes.
• This method is more efficient and leads to an optimal
solution.
 Boltzmann selection

• This method simulates the process of slow cooling of molten

metal to achieve the minimum function value in a minimization
problem .
• In Boltzmann selection, a continuously varying temperature
controls the rate of selection according to a preset schedule.
• Let fmax be the fitness of the currently available best string.
• If the next string has fitness f(Xi )such that f(Xi ) >f max,
then the new string is selected. Otherwise it is selected with
BoltzMann probability
where T = To (1-α)k and k = (1+ 100 *g/G);
•g is the current generation number;
•G the maximum value of g.
•The value of α can be chosen from the range [0, 1] and To
from the range [5, 100].
• The final state is reached when computation approaches
zero value of T.
i.e., the global solution is achieved at this point.
• The probability that the best string is selected and
introduced into the mating pool is very high.
Elitism
• Elitism can be used to eliminate the chance of any
undesired loss of information during the mutation stage.
• The first best chromosome or the few best chromosomes
are copied to the new population.
• The rest is done in a classical way.
• Such individuals can be lost if they are not selected to
reproduce or if crossover or mutation destroys them
• improves-the GA's performance.
• The execution time is less.
Stochastic Universal Sampling

• The individuals are mapped to contiguous segments of a line,

such that each individual's segment is equal in size to its
fitness exactly as in Roulette wheel selection.

• Here equally spaced pointers are placed over the line, as many
as there are individuals to be selected
• provides zero bias and minimum spread.
• Consider NPointer the number of individuals to be
selected,
• Then the distance between the pointers are 1/NPointer
• The position of the first pointer is given by a randomly
generated number in the range [0, 1/NPointer].
• For 6 individuals to be selected, the distance
between the pointers is 1/6 = 0.167.
• Sample of 1 random number in the range [0, 0.167]:
0.1.
• After selection the mating population consists of the
individuals,
1,2,3,4,6,8
Crossover(Recombination)
• Crossover is the process of taking two parent solutions and
producing from them a child.
• Crossover operator is applied to the mating pool with the
hope that it creates a better offspring.
• Crossover is a recombination operator that proceeds in
three steps:
• The selection operator selects at random a pair of two
individual strings for the mating.
• A cross site(point) is selected at random along the
string length.
• Finally, the position values are swapped between the
two strings following the cross site.
Single Point Crossover
 Two chromosomes are cut once at corresponding points and
 The sections after the cuts exchanged.
 Here, a cross site or crossover point is selected randomly
 Split parents at the crossover point.

 Create children by exchanging tails.

Two point Crossover

• More than one cut point

• Problem space may be searched more thoroughly.
• Two crossover points are chosen and the contents
between these points are exchanged .
• Disadvantage: building blocks are more likely to be
disrupted.
Multipoint Crossover(n Point Crossover)
 Choose n random crossover points.

 Split along those points.

 Glue parts, alternating between parents.

 Generalization of 1 point.
Uniform Crossover
• Each gene in the offspring is created by copying the
corresponding gene from one or the other parent
• chosen according to a random generated binary
crossover mask of the same length as the chromosomes.
• Where there is a 1 in the crossover mask, the gene is
copied from the first parent, and where there is a 0 in the
mask the gene is copied from the second parent
• Offspring, therefore, contain a mixture of genes from each
parent.
Three Parent Crossover
• Three parents are randomly chosen.
• Each bit of the first parent is compared with the bit of the
second parent.
• lf both are the same, the bit is taken for the offspring,
otherwise the bit from the third parent is taken for the
offspring.
Crossover with Reduced Surrogate
• The reduced surrogate operator constraints crossover to
always produce new individuals wherever possible.
• This is implemented by restricting the location of crossover
points such that crossover points only occur where gene
values differ.
Shuffle cross over
• Related to uniform crossover.
• A single crossover position is selected.
• But before the variables are exchanged, they are randomly
shuffled in both parents.
• After recombination, the variables in the offspring are
unshuffled.
Precedence Preservative Crossover (PPX)
• The operator passes on precedence relations of operations
given in two parental permutations to one offspring at the
same rate.

The operator works as follows

1. A vector of length Sigma, sub i = 1 to mi, representing the
number of operations involved in the problem, is randomly
filled with elements of the set {1, 2).
2. This vector defines the order in which the operations are
successively drawn from parent I and parent 2.
3. We can also consider the parent and offspring
permutations as lists, for which the operations "append“ and
"delete'' are defined.
4. First we start by initializing an empty offspring.
5. One of the two parents is selected in accordance with the
order of parents given in the vector.
6. After an operation is selected, it is deleted in both parents.
7 · Finally the selected operation is appended to the offspring.
8. Step 7 is repeated until both parents are empty and the
offspring contains all operations involved.
Ordered Crossover
• Ordered two-point crossover is used when the problem is
order based.
• Given two parent chromosomes, two random crossover
points are selected partitioning them into a left, middle and
right portions.
• The ordered two -point crossover behaves in the following
way:
• child 1 inherits its left and right section from parent 1,
and its middle section is determined by the genes in
the middle section of parent 1 in the order in which the
values appear in parent 2.
• A similar process is applied to determine child 2.
Ordered crossover::
Order 1 crossover

• 1. Choose an arbitrary part from the first parent

• 2. Copy this part to the first child
• 3. Copy the numbers that are not in the first part, to the
first child:
• starting right from cut point of the copied part,
• using the order of the second parent
• and wrapping around at the end
• 4. Analogous for the second child, with parent roles
reversed
Partially matched crossover (PMX)

• can be applied in the TSP.

• TSP chromosomes are simply sequences of
integers, where each integer represents a different
city and the order represents the time at which a
city is visited.
• Here both offspring receive a full complement of
genes, followed by the corresponding filling in of
alleles from their parents.
• PMX proceeds as follows:
I. The two chromosomes are aligned.
2. Two crossing sites are selected uniformly at
random along the strings, defining a matching
section.
3. The matching section is used to effect a cross
through position-by-position exchange operation.
4. Alleles are moved to their new positions in the
offspring.
Crossover probability

• The basic parameter in crossover technique is the

crossover probability (Pc).
• Crossover probability is a parameter
• to describe how often crossover will be performed.
• If there is no crossover, offspring are exact copies of
parents.
• If there is crossover, offspring are" made from parts of
both parents' chromosome.
• If crossover probability is 1OO %, then all offspring are
made by crossover.
• If it is O %, whole new- generation is made from exact
copies of chromosomes from old population
• Crossover is made in hope that new chromosomes will
contain good parts of old chromosomes and therefore the
new chromosomes will be better.
Mutation
• After crossover, the strings are subjected to mutation.
• Mutation prevents the algorithm to be trapped in a local
• minimum.
• Recovering the lost genetic materials as well as for
randomly distributing generic information.
• Mutation operator to maintain genetic diversity in the
population.
• It introduces new genetic structures in the population
by randomly modifying some of its building blocks
Different types of mutation

• Flipping
• Interchanging
• Reversing
Flipping

• Flipping of a bit involves changing 0 to 1 and 1 to 0

based on a mutation chromosome generated.
• A parent is considered and a mutation chromosome
is randomly generated.
• For a 1 in mutation chromosome, the corresponding
bit in parent chromosome is flipped (0 to 1 and 1 to
0) and child chromosome is produced.
Interchanging

• Two random positions of the string are chosen and

the bits corresponding to those positions are
interchanged.
Reversing
• A random position is chosen and the bits next to
that position are reversed and child chromosome is
produced.
Mutation probability
• An important parameter in the mutation technique
is the mutation probability(Pm ).
• decides how often parts of chromosome will be
mutated.
• If there is no mutation, offspring are generated
immediately after crossover (or directly copied) without
any change.
• If mutation is performed, one or more parts of a
chromosome are changed.
• If mutation probability is 100%, whole chromosome is
changed;
• if it is 0%, nothing is changed.
• Prevents the GA from falling into local extremes
Stopping Condition for Genetic Algorithm Flow
1. Maximum generations:. The GA stops when the specified
number of generations has evolved.
2. Elapsed time: The genetic process will end when a specified
time has elapsed.
• If the maximum number of generation has been
reached before the specified time has elapsed, the
process will end.
3. No change in fitness: The genetic process will end if there is
no change to the population's best fitness for a specified
number of generations.
• Note: If the maximum number of generation has been
reached before the specified number of generation with
changes has been reached, the process will end.
4. Stall generations: The algorithm stops if there is no
improvement in the objective function for a sequence of
consecutive generations.
5. Stall time limit. The algorithm stops if there is no
improvement in the objective function during an interval of
time in seconds equal to "Stall time limit."·
• The termination or convergence criterion finally brings the
search to a halt.
• Few methods of termination Techniques
• Best individual
• Worst individual
• Sum of fitness
• Median fitness
Best Individual
• A best individual convergence criterion stops the search
once the minimum fitness in the population drops below
the convergence value.
Worst Individual
• Worst individual terminates the search when the least fit
individuals in the population have fitness less than the
convergence criteria.
Sum of Fitness
• In this termination scheme, the search is considered to have
satisfaction converged
 • when the sum of the fitness in the entire population is
less than or equal to the convergence value in the
population record.
Median Fitness
• Here at least half of the individuals will be better than or
equal to the convergence value, which should give a good
range of solutions to choose from.
Example – Selection

 Main idea: Better individuals get higher chance:

• Chances are proportional to fitness.

• Implementation: Roulette wheel technique
» Assign to each individual a part of the roulette wheel.
» Spin the wheel n times to select n individuals.

1/6 = 17%
fitness(A) = 3

A B
C fitness(B) = 1
3/6 = 50% 2/6 = 33% fitness(C) = 2
Genetic Algorithm – An Example
 Simple problem: max x2 over {0, 1, …, 31}

 GA approach:
• Representation: binary code, e.g. 01101  13
• Population size: 4
• 1-point xover, bitwise mutation
• Roulette wheel selection
• Random initialisation

 One generational cycle performed manually is shown here.

Example : Selection

4 1
31% 14%

5% 3
49%
2
Example : Crossover
Example : Mutation
• From the tables population average fitness has
improved from 293 to 588
• The maximum fitness has increased from 576 to
729
• random processes make this best solution, its
improvement can also be seen successively.
• The best string of the initial population (1 1 0 0 0
receives two chances for its existence because of
its high, above-average performance.
• When this combines at random with the next
highest string (1 0 0 1 1) and is crossed at crossover
point 2 one of the resulting strings (1 1 0 11)
proves to be a very best solution indeed.
• Thus after mutation at random, a new offspring
(11 011) produced which is an excellent choice.
Comparison of GA with Traditional Optimization Techniques

 GA works with the coding of solution set and not with the solution itself.

 GA uses population of solutions rather than a single solution for

searching.

 GA uses fitness function for evaluation rather the derivatives.

 GA uses probabilistic transition and not deterministic rules.

A Simple Example

The Traveling Salesman Problem:

Find a tour of a given set of cities so that

– each city is visited only once
– the total distance traveled is minimized
Representation
Representation is an ordered list of city
numbers known as an order-based GA.
1) London 3) Dunedin 5) Beijing 7) Tokyo
2) Venice 4) Singapore 6) Phoenix 8) Victoria

CityList1 (3 5 7 2 1 6 4 8)
CityList2 (2 5 7 6 8 1 3 4)
Crossover

Crossover combines inversion and recombination:

* *
Parent1 (3 5 7 2 1 6 4 8)
Parent2 (2 5 7 6 8 1 3 4)

Child (5 8 7 2 1 6 3 4)

This operator is called the Order1 crossover.

Mutation
Mutation involves reordering of the list:

* *
Before: (5 8 7 2 1 6 3 4)

After: (5 8 6 2 1 7 3 4)
TSP Example: 30 Cities

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Solution i (Distance = 941)
TSP30 (Performance = 941)

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Solution j(Distance = 800)
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Solution k(Distance = 652)
TSP30 (Performance = 652)

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