A fast evaluation strategy for evolutionary algorithms

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are a popular and robust strategy for optimization problems. However, these algorithms may require huge computation power for solving real problems. This paper introduces a “fast evolutionary algorithm” (FEA) that does not evaluate all new individuals, thus operating faster. A fitness and associated reliability value are assigned to each new individual that is only evaluated using the true fitness function if the reliability value is below a threshold. Moreover, applying random evaluation and error compensation strategies to the FEA further enhances the performance of the algorithm. Simulation results show that for six optimization functions an average reduction of 40% in the number of evaluations was observed while obtaining similar solutions to those found using a traditional evolutionary algorithm. For these same functions, by completion, the algorithm also finds a 4% better fitness value on average for the same number of evaluations. For an image compression system, the algorithm found on average 3% (12%) better fitness values or compression ratios using only 58% (65%) number of evaluations needed by an EA in lossless (lossy) compression mode.