Genetic Algorithms

Genetic algorithms are relatively new paradigms in artificial intelligence which are based on the
principles of natural selection. The formal theory was initially developed by John Holland and
his students in the1970’s. Genetic algorithm (GAs) has been used in many fields such as image
processing, signal processing, telecommunication, cryptography etc. Genetic algorithms have
been successfully applied to many different types of problems, though several factors limit the
success of a GA on a specific function. GAs plays an important role in computational
optimization and operations research.

Holland (1975) introduced genetic algorithms. In these algorithms the search space of the
problem is represented as the collection of the individuals. These individuals are represented in
the form of character string or binary strings or matrices which are often referred as
chromosome. The purpose of using genetic algorithm is to find the individual from the search
space with the best “genetic material”. The part of the search space to be examined is called
population.

The genetic algorithm process consists of the following steps:

• Encoding (Representation)
• Selection
• Crossover
• Mutation
 Figure: Genetic Algorithm Cycle

Flowchart of Genetic Algorithm:

InInitialize
Population

Selection
Select individuals for
mating

Crossover
Mate individuals to
produce offspring

Mutation
Mutate offspring

Insert offspring into

population

Are stopping
No
criteria
satisfied?

Yes

Stop

Flowchart of Genetic Algorithm

Steps of Genetic Algorithm

The general steps of GA are as follows:

1) Generate random population of n individuals.
2) Evaluate the fitness of each individual.
3) Create a new population.
• Select two parents from a population according to their fitness.
• Crossover operation performed between the two parents
• Mutation operation is performed this will change the trip from the output of step B, if
not the children will be the same
• Add new children in a new population.
4) Evaluate the fitness of each individual.
5) If the stopping criteria is satisfied, the algorithm stops and shows the best trip, if not it will
start over from step 3 and continues the iteration.