Variation Operators

Variation operators modify individuals, or, equivalently, move them in the search space. They are almost always stochastic, i.e. they generate random variations. Variation operators are classified depending on the number of arguments they use and/or modify.

Variation operators involving two individuals are called crossover operators. They can either modify one of the parents according to the material of the other parent, or modify both parents. In EO, the former are called Binary operators and the latter Quadratic operators.
 

Variation operators involving one single individual are called mutation operators.

Note that in EO you can define and use variatio operators that generate any number of offspring fromany number of parents. These are called general operators, and require advanced knowledge of EO.

Crossover
Crossover operators involve two parents, and can modify one of them, or both of them.

Using crossover operators

Mutation
Mutation operators modify one single individual. The corresponding EO class is called eoMonOp.

Using mutation operators

The standard EO genotypes (bistrings and real vectors) have pre-defined mutation operators.
 

Writing a mutation operator

 

 

General Operators
 
 
 


Marc Schoenauer

Last modified: Mon Oct 30 18:24:39 CET 2000