Niche search and evolutionary optimisation
Pedroso Ramos Dos Santos, João Pedro · RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · 1996
We start this paper by an introduction to evolutionary algorithms and to their biological background. We present a survey of the most important evolutionary schemes found in the literature. We then describe niche search, a genetic-based optimisation approach that we have designed and implemented. It is characterized by an evolutionary search on two layers: the individual layer (which is comparable to search described in other genetic algorithms), and the niche layer. Neither of these searches is directed: both individuals and niches evolve based on the selection of the fittest. The numerical results obtained by niche search are quite promising, as our implementation has successfully handled all the tests carried out. The computational performance is considerably better than that of other algorithms of the same family analyzed in the literature.