Evolutionary Computation: An Overview and Recent Trends

Evolutionary computation is a steadily increasing research discipline covering computer algorithms that are inspired by principles of natural evolution. The three main mechanisms that drive evolution forward are reproduction, mutation, and natural selection (i.e., the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest). In the biological world these mechanisms enable life-forms to adapt to a particular environment over successive generations. The camel’s hump, the eagle’s eye, the dolphin’s sonar, the human brain – they all can be seen as solutions to environmental problems that were generated by evolution. Evolutionary algorithms adopt these mechanisms of natural evolution in simplified ways and breed progressively better solutions to a wide variety of complex optimization and design problems.