Combining genetic algorithms with BESO for topology optimization

This paper proposes a new algorithm for topology optimization by combining the features of genetic algorithms (GAs) and bi-directional evolutionary structural optimization (BESO). An efficient treatment of individuals and population for finite element models is presented which is different from traditional GAs application in structural design. GAs operators of crossover and mutation suitable for topology optimization problems are developed. The effects of various parameters used in the proposed GA on the optimization speed and performance are examined. Several 2D and 3D examples of compliance minimization problems are provided to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed new approach and its capability of obtaining convergent solutions. Wherever possible, the numerical results of the proposed algorithm are compared with the solutions of other GA methods and the SIMP method.     

基于遗传算法的IP网流量优化算法

流量工程通过对IP网流量的优化以更有效利用网络资源。现有研究的一个重要方向是把流量工程问题用线性规划建模,并利用传统的Simplex算法求得最优解,文章提出了一种基于遗传算法的求解方法,从一组随机选取的解(染色体)出发,经过交叉、突变等基因进化操作和多代的选择,最终达到预先设定的适应度准则;给出仿真结果和相关讨论;显示该文算法在运算量,处理动态流量需求等方面有较好的应用前景。     

Solution searching for multivariable optimization problems by a momentum genetic algorithm

Genetic algorithms (GAs) have emerged as powerful solution searching mechanisms, especially for nonlinear and multivariable optimization problems. Generally, it is time-consuming for GAs to find the solutions, and sometimes they cannot find the global optima. In order to improve their search performance, we propose a fast GA algorithm called momentum GA, which employs momentum offspring (MOS) and constant range mutation (CRM). MOS, which generates offspring based on the best individuals of current and past generations, is considered to have the effect of fast searching for the optimum solutions. CRM is considered to have the ability to avoid the production of ineffective individuals and maintain the diversity of the population. In order to verify the performance of our proposed method, a comparison between momentum GA and the conventional mean will be implemented by utilizing optimization problems of two multivariable functions and neural network training problems with different activation functions. Simulations show that the proposed method has good performance regardless of the small values of the population size and generation number in the GA. This work was presented in part at the 12th International Symposium on Artificial Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, January 25–27, 2007     

On improving multiobjective genetic algorithms for design optimization

This paper presents some improvements to Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithms (MOGAs). MOGA modifies certain operators within the GA itself to produce a multiobjective optimization technique. The improvements are made to overcome some of the shortcomings in niche formation, stopping criteria and interaction with a design decision-maker. The technique involves filtering, mating restrictions, the idea of objective constraints, and detecting Pareto solutions in the non-convex region of the Pareto set. A step-by-step procedure for an improved MOGA has been developed and demonstrated via two multiobjective engineering design examples: (i) two-bar truss design, and (ii) vibrating platform design. The two-bar truss example has continuous variables while the vibrating platform example has mixed-discrete (combinatorial) variables. Both examples are solved by MOGA with and without the improvements. It is shown that MOGA with the improvements performs better for both examples in terms of the number of function evaluations.     

Developing an Adaptation Process for Real-Coded Genetic Algorithms

The genetic algorithm (GA) is a metaheuristic method which simulates the life cycle and the survival of the fittest in the nature for solving optimization problems. This study aimed to develop enhanced operation by modifying the current GA. This development process includes an adaptation method that contains certain developments and adds a new process to the classic algorithm. Individuals of a population will be trialed to adapt to the current solution of the problem by taking them separately for each generation. With this adaptation method, it is more likely to get better results in a shorter time. Experimental results show that this new process accelerated the algorithm and a certain solution has been reached in fewer generations. In addition, better solutions were achieved, especially for a certain number of generations.     

A genetic algorithm-based solution methodology for modular design

Combinatorial optimization problems usually have a finite number of feasible solutions. However, the process of solving these types of problems can be a very long and tedious task. Moreover, the cost and time for getting accurate and acceptable results is usually quite large. As the complexity and size of these problems grow, the current methods for solving problems such as the scheduling problem or the classification problem have become obsolete, and the need for an efficient method that will ensure good solutions for these complicated problems has increased. This paper presents a genetic algorithm (GA)-based method used in the solution of a set of combinatorial optimization problems. A definition of a combinatorial optimization problem is first given. The definition is followed by an introduction to genetic algorithms and an explanation of their role in solving combinatorial optimization problems such as the traveling salesman problem. A heuristic GA is then developed and used as a tool for solving various combinatorial optimization problems such as the modular design problem. A modularity case study is used to test and measure the performance of the developed algorithm.     

A genetic algorithm to solve the storage space allocation problem in a container terminal

In this paper, an efficient genetic algorithm (GA) is presented to solve an extended storage space allocation problem (SSAP) in a container terminal. The SSAP is defined as the temporary allocation of the inbound/outbound containers to the storage blocks at each time period with aim of balancing the workload between blocks in order to minimize the storage/retrieval times of containers. An extended version of a SSAP proposed in the literature is considered in this paper in which the type of container affects on making the decision on the allocation of containers to the blocks. In real-world cases, there are different types (as well as different sizes) of containers consisting of several different goods such as regular, empty and refrigerated containers. The extended SSAP is solved by an efficient GA for real-sized instances. Because of existing the several equality constraints in the extended model, the implementation of the GA in order to quick and facilitate achieve to the feasible solutions is one of the outstanding advantages of this paper. The performance of the extended model and proposed GA is verified by a number of numerical examples.     

基于CUDA平台的遗传算法并行实现研究

CUDA技术方便程序员在GPU上进行通用计算,但并没有提供随机数产生的应用接口。为此,本文提出并实现在CUDA开发平台上并行产生均匀随机数算法,测试证明算法可行。在此基础上优化基本遗传算法,并在GPU上并行实现其所有操作,提高其运行速度和准确度;分析了种群大小和遗传代数对此算法加速比及准确度的影响,并与MAT-LAB工具箱进行比较。实验表明,相比MATLAB遗传算法工具箱,基于CUDA平台实现的遗传算法性能更高,准确度更好。     

A novel optimization approach for minimum cost design of trusses

This paper describes new optimization strategies that offer significant improvements in performance over existing methods for bridge-truss design. In this study, a real-world cost function that consists of costs on the weight of the truss and the number of products in the design is considered. We propose a new sizing approach that involves two algorithms applied in sequence – (1) a novel approach to generate a “good” initial solution and (2) a local search that attempts to generate the optimal solution by starting with the final solution from the previous algorithm. A clustering technique, which identifies members that are likely to have the same product type, is used with cost functions that consider a cost on the number of products. The proposed approach gives solutions that are much lower in cost compared to those generated in a comprehensive study of the same problem using genetic algorithms (GA). Also, the number of evaluations needed to arrive at the optimal solution is an order of magnitude lower than that needed in GAs. Since existing optimization techniques use cost functions like those of minimum-weight truss problems to illustrate their performance, the proposed approach is also applied to the same examples in order to compare its relative performance. The proposed approach is shown to generate solutions of not only better quality but also much more efficiently. To highlight the use of this sizing approach in a broader optimization framework, a simple geometry optimization algorithm that uses the sizing approach is presented. This algorithm is also shown to provide solutions better than the existing results in literature.     

Structural topology design optimization using Genetic Algorithms with a bit-array representation

In this paper, a bit-array representation method for structural topology optimization using the Genetic Algorithm (GA) is implemented. The importance of structural connectivity in a design is further emphasized by considering the total number of connected objects of each individual explicitly in an equality constraint function. To evaluate the constrained objective function, Deb’s constraint handling approach is further developed to ensure that feasible individuals are always better than infeasible ones in the population to improve the efficiency of the GA. A violation penalty method is proposed to drive the GA search towards the topologies with higher structural performance, less unusable material and fewer separate objects in the design domain. An identical initialization method is also proposed to improve the GA performance in dealing with problems with long narrow design domains. Numerical results of structural topology optimization problems of minimum weight and minimum compliance designs show the success of this bit-array representation method and suggest that the GA performance can be significantly improved by handling the design connectivity properly.     

Enhancing genetic algorithms for dependent job scheduling in grid computing environments

Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are stochastic search techniques based on principles of natural selection and recombination that attempt to find optimal solutions in polynomial time by manipulating a population of candidate solutions. GAs have been widely used for job scheduling optimisation in both homogeneous and heterogeneous computing environments. When compared with list scheduling heuristics, GAs can potentially provide better solutions but require much longer processing time and significant experimentation to determine GA parameters. This paper presents a GA for scheduling dependent jobs in grid computing environments. A?number of selection and pre-selection criteria for the GA are evaluated with an aim to improve GA performance in job scheduling optimization. A?Task Matching with Data scheme is proposed as a GA mutation operator. Furthermore, the effect of the choice of heuristics for seeding the GA is investigated.     

动态系统的常微分方程组建模—基于不同搜索技术的实验研究

以人口模型和化学反应模型为例,通过大量实验研究比较了分别采用基于两种传统的搜索方法即局部搜索算法和模拟退火算法、遗传算法（简称GA）四者相结合的14种不同算法建立动态系统的常微分方程组模型的实验结果,得到了有关各算法性能比较的一些新的结论。两个实例的实验结果表明：在14种算法中,GP＋GA＋LS－MU算法（即在采用GP的模型结构的优化过程中嵌入采用GA的模型参数的优化过程,并且在每一演化代对种群中的部分个体进行基于GP的标准变异算子产生邻域解的局域搜索过程）是目前解决常微分方程组建模问题的最好算法。     

旋转卫星舱内长方体群的布局

该文以人造卫星舱布局为背景,研究二维带平衡及不干涉等约束的长方形集在圆容器内的布局优化问题,此问题属于NP-困难问题。文章将粒子群算法(PSO)应用于该问题,构造此类问题的粒子表达方法,建立此类问题的粒子群算法。文中通过4个算例(其中一个属于高维)的数值计算,验证了该算法的可行性和有效性。     

Optimal job scheduling in grid computing using efficient binary artificial bee colony optimization

The artificial bee colony has the advantage of employing fewer control parameters compared with other population-based optimization algorithms. In this paper a binary artificial bee colony (BABC) algorithm is developed for binary integer job scheduling problems in grid computing. We further propose an efficient binary artificial bee colony extension of BABC that incorporates a flexible ranking strategy (FRS) to improve the balance between exploration and exploitation. The FRS is introduced to generate and use new solutions for diversified search in early generations and to speed up convergence in latter generations. Two variants are introduced to minimize the makepsan. In the first a fixed number of best solutions is employed with the FRS while in the second the number of the best solutions is reduced with each new generation. Simulation results for benchmark job scheduling problems show that the performance of our proposed methods is better than those alternatives such as genetic algorithms, simulated annealing and particle swarm optimization.     

Genetic algorithms with applications in wireless communications

Genetic algorithms (GAs) are known to locate the global optimal solution provided sufficient population and/or generation is used. Practically, a near-optimal satisfactory result can be found by Gas with a limited number of generations. In wireless communications, the exhaustive searching approach is widely applied to many techniques, such as maximum likelihood decoding (MLD) and distance spectrum (DS) techniques. The complexity of the exhaustive searching approach in the MLD or the DS technique is exponential in the number of transmit antennas and the size of the signal constellation for the multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communication systems. If a large number of antennas and a large size of signal constellations, e.g. PSK and QAM, are employed in the MIMO systems, the exhaustive searching approach becomes impractical and time consuming. In this paper, the GAs are applied to the MLD and DS techniques to provide a near-optimal performance with a reduced computational complexity for the MIMO systems. Two different GA-based efficient searching approaches are proposed for the MLD and DS techniques, respectively. The first proposed approach is based on a GA with sharing function method, which is employed to locate the multiple solutions of the distance spectrum for the Space-time Trellis Coded Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (STTC-OFDM) systems. The second approach is the GA-based MLD that attempts to find the closest point to the transmitted signal. The proposed approach can return a satisfactory result with a good initial signal vector provided to the GA. Through simulation results, it is shown that the proposed GA-based efficient searching approaches can achieve near-optimal performance, but with a lower searching complexity comparing with the original MLD and DS techniques for the MIMO systems.     

Structural pattern recognition using genetic algorithms

This paper presents a genetic algorithm (GA) based optimization procedure for the solution of structural pattern recognition problem using the attributed relational graph representation and matching technique. In this study, candidate solutions are represented by integer strings and the population is randomly initialized. The GA is employed to generate a monomorphic mapping. As all the mapping constraints are not enforced during the search phase in order to speedup the search, an efficient pose clustering algorithm is used to eliminate spurious matches and to determine the presence of the model in the scene. The performance of the proposed approach to pattern recognition by subgraph isomorphism is demonstrated using line patterns and silhouette images.     

Performance optimization of open zero-buffer multi-server queueing networks

Open zero-buffer multi-server general queueing networks occur throughout a number of physical systems in the semi-process and process industries. In this paper, we evaluate the performance of these systems in terms of throughput using the generalized expansion method (GEM) and compare our results with simulation. Secondly, we embed the performance evaluation in a multi-objective optimization setting. This multi-objective optimization approach results in the Pareto efficient curves showing the trade-off between the total number of servers used and the throughput. Experiments for a large number of settings and different network topologies are presented in detail.     

Yard crane scheduling in a container terminal for the trade-off between efficiency and energy consumption

Green transportation has recently been the focus of the transportation industry to sustain the development of global economy. Container terminals are key nodes in the global transportation network and energy-saving is a main goal for them. Yard crane (YC), as one type of handling equipment, plays an important role in the service efficiency and energy-saving of container terminals. However, traditional methods of YC scheduling solely aim to improve the efficiency of container terminals and do not refer to energy-saving. Therefore, it is imperative to seek an appropriate approach for YC scheduling that considers the trade-off between efficiency and energy consumption. In this paper, the YC scheduling problem is firstly converted into a vehicle routing problem with soft time windows (VRPSTW). This problem is formulated as a mixed integer programming (MIP) model, whose two objectives minimize the total completion delay of all task groups and the total energy consumption of all YCs. Subsequently, an integrated simulation optimization method is developed for solving the problem, where the simulation is designed for evaluating solutions and the optimization algorithm is designed for exploring the solution space. The optimization algorithm integrates the genetic algorithm (GA) and the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, where the GA is used for global search and the PSO is used for local search. Finally, computational experiments are conducted to validate the performance of the proposed method.     

A new hybrid GA solution to combinatorial optimization problems— an application to the multiprocessor scheduling problem

The multiprocessor scheduling problem is one of the classic examples of NP-hard combinatorial optimization problems. Several polynomial time optimization algorithms have been proposed for approximating the multiprocessor scheduling problem. In this paper, we suggest a geneticizedknowledge genetic algorithm (gkGA) as an efficient heuristic approach for solving the multiprocessor scheduling and other combinatorial optimization problems. The basic idea behind the gkGA approach is that knowledge of the heuristics to be used in the GA is also geneticized alongiside the genetic chromosomes. We start by providing four conversion schemes based on heuristics for converting chromosomes into priority lists. Through experimental evaluation, we observe that the performance of our GA based on each of these schemes is instance-dependent. However, if we simultaneously incorporate these schemes into our GA through the gkGA approach, simulation results show that the approach is not problem-dependent, and that the approach outperforms that of the previous GA. We also show the effectiveness of the gkGA approach compared with other conventional schemes through experimental evaluation. This work was presented, in part, at the Second International Symposium on Artifiical Life and Robotics, Oita, Japan, February 18–20, 1997     

A parallel genetic algorithm to solve the set-covering problem

This work presents a parallel genetic algorithm (PGA) model to solve the set-covering problem (SCP). Experimental results obtained with a binary representation of the SCP, show that—in terms of the number of generations (computational time) needed to achieve solutions of an acceptable quality—PGA performs better than the sequential model. This comportment can be explained principally because, the PGA of p nodes—each one with its corresponding local population P_L—behaves like a sequential GA with a global population, P_G, of the same size, which it—the sequential GA—has the great disadvantage of having to completely evaluate in each generation. Not so the PGA, which only evaluates a pth part of the P_G.Scope and purposeSince classical optimization techniques are inefficient to solve NP-complete problems—in terms of computational complexity—new methods have been developed. The genetic algorithm (GA), is one of such methods proposed to solve combinatorial optimization. Although Genetic Algorithms (GAs) are efficient to solve these kinds of hard problems, during recent years, models of parallel genetic algorithms (PGAs) have been used to improve both quality of solutions and computing time. The aim of using PGAs, is to discover how the interchange of genetic information of separate populations, affects or influences the final solution. The exploration of different solution spaces could optimize the search in terms of both computational time and quality of solution.