Evolutionary computation: an overview

We present an overview of the most important representatives of algorithms gleaned from natural evolution, so-called evolutionary algorithms. Evolution strategies, evolutionary programming, and genetic algorithms are summarized, with special emphasis on the principle of strategy parameter self-adaptation utilized by the first two algorithms to learn their own strategy parameters such as mutation variances and covariances. Some experimental results are presented which demonstrate the working principle and robustness of the self-adaptation methods used in evolution strategies and evolutionary programming. General principles of evolutionary algorithms are discussed, and we identify certain properties of natural evolution which might help to improve the problem solving capabilities of evolutionary algorithms even further.