The fGA : Forking Genetic Algorithm with Blocking and Shrinking Modes

Abstract

This paper presents a new type of multi-population GA, that is, the forking Genetic Algorithm (fGA). The fGA is designed to solve multi-modal problems which are difficult to solve by the traditional GAs because of the many isolated-optimums. The feature of fGA is that it uses multi-population consisting of one parent population with blocking mode and one or more child populations with shrinking mode. Two problems are taken to demonstrate the validity of fGA. One is an FM Sounds parameter identification problem and the other is Oliver's 30 City TSP. The results of experiments show that the fGA outperforms the standard GA.