Dynamic Parameter Control in Simple Evolutionary Algorithms

Evolutionary algorithms are general, randomized search heuristics that are influenced by many parameters. Though evolutionary algorithms are assumed to be robust, it is well-known that choosing the parameters appropriately is crucial for success and efficiency of the search. It has been shown in many experiments, that non-static parameter settings can be by far superior to static ones but theoretical verifications are hard to find. We investigate a very simple evolutionary algorithm and rigorously prove that employing dynamic parameter control can greatly speed-up optimization.