Different Environmental Conditions in Genetic Algorithm

Abstract: We propose an extended genetic algorithm (GA) with different local environmental conditions. Genetic entities, or configurations, are put on nodes in a ring structure, and location-dependent environmental conditions are applied for each entity. Our GA is motivated by the geographic aspect of natural evolution: Geographic isolation reduces the diversity in a local group, but at the same time, can enhance intergroup diversity. Mating of genetic entities across different environments can make it possible to search for broad area of the fitness landscape. We validate our extended GA for finding the ground state of three-dimensional spin-glass system and find that the use of different environmental conditions makes it possible to find the lower-energy spin configurations at relatively shorter computation time. Our extension of GA belongs to a meta-optimization method and thus can be applied for a broad research area in which finding of the optimal state in a shorter computation time is the key problem.