Introduction to Genetic Algorithms
This is an introduction to genetic algorithm methods for optimization. Genetic algorithms were formally introduced in the United States in the 1970s by John Holland at University of Michigan. The continuing price/performance improvements of computational systems has made them attractive for some types of optimization. In particular, genetic algorithms work very well on mixed (continuous and discrete), combinatorial problems. They are less susceptible to getting 'stuck' at local optima than gradient search methods. But they tend to be computationally expensive.

To use a genetic algorithm, you must represent a solution to your problem as a genome (or chromosome). The genetic algorithm then creates a population of solutions and applies genetic operators such as mutation and crossover to evolve the solutions in order to find the best one(s).

This presentation outlines some of the basics of genetic algorithms. The three most important aspects of using genetic algorithms are: (1) definition of the objective function, (2) definition and implementation of the genetic representation, and (3) definition and implementation of the genetic operators. Once these three have been defined, the generic genetic algorithm should work fairly well. Beyond that you can try many different variations to improve performance, find multiple optima (species - if they exist), or parallelize the algorithms.



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