Abstract

Genetic Algorithms and Evolution Strategies, the main representatives of a class of algorithms based on the model of natural evolution, are discussed w.r.t. their basic working mechanisms, differences, and application possibilities. The mechanism of selfadaptation of strategy parameters within Evolution Strategies is emphasized and turns out to be the major difference to Genetic Algorithms, since it allows for an on-line adaptation of strategy parameters without exogenous control. Furthermore, the importance of selection as a mechanism to control the character of the search to be either more volume oriented or more path oriented is pointed out. 1 Introduction Within nearly 20 years of research it has been demonstrated that the search process of natural evolution can yield very robust search algorithms on a computer, although the imitations used are crude simplifications of the natural model. Several of these Evolutionary Algorithms are nowadays broadly accepted, the most important on...

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