Improvement of Adaptive Genetic Algorithm and its application in examination timetabling optimization problem

Abstract

University examination timetabling problem is a complicated, multi-constraint combinatorial optimization problem. The current grouping genetic algorithm could get a better optimistic solution. Although the block encoding technique was applied in, the probabilities of crossover and mutation operation were still based on simple genetic algorithm. So the universality of this algorithm is not very well because the same probabilities of crossover and mutation operation could obtain different effects in different cases of examination arrangements. To find a more general algorithm, an Improved Adaptive Genetic Algorithm (IAGA) for practical applications was presented in this paper. IAGA can reconstruct the probabilities of crossover and mutation operation according to different cases of examination arrangements. To make further improvement of its convergence speed and overcome premature problem, IAGA appropriately adjusts mutation operation by Population's Maturity in addition. Moreover, the Memory Operator was added into the Algorithm to ensure getting the global optimization solution. Finally, IAGA was tested in function optimization and Examination Timetabling problems, and the experiments show that the results are promoted very well.