Genetic Algorithm with adaptive elitist-population strategies for multimodal function optimization

Abstract

This paper introduces a new technique called adaptive elitist-population search method. This technique allows unimodal function optimization methods to be extended to efficiently explore multiple optima of multimodal problems. It is based on the concept of adaptively adjusting the population size according to the individuals’ dissimilarity and a novel direction dependent elitist genetic operators. Incorporation of the new multimodal technique in any known evolutionary algorithm leads to a multimodal version of the algorithm. As a case study, we have integrated the new technique into Genetic Algorithms (GAs), yielding an Adaptive Elitist-population based Genetic Algorithm (AEGA). AEGA has been shown to be very efficient and effective in finding multiple solutions of complicated benchmark and real-world multimodal optimization problems. We demonstrate this by applying it to a set of test problems, including rough and stepwise multimodal functions. Empirical results are also compared with other multimodal evolutionary algorithms from the literature, showing that AEGA generally outperforms existing approaches.