| Abstract |
Since Holland systematically proposed genetic algorithm (GA) in 1975, mutation operator has been seldom improved because researchers hardly suspect its ability to prevent GA from converging prematurely. Due to its importance to GA, the authors of this paper study its influence on the diversity of genes in the same locus, and point out that the traditional mutation, to some extent, can result in premature convergence of genes (PCG) in the same locus. The above drawback of the traditional mutation operator will cause the loss of critical alleles. Inspired by digital technique, we import two kinds of boolean operation into GA to develop a novel mutation operator and discuss its contribution to prevent the loss of critical alleles. The experimental results of function optimization show that the improved mutation operator can prevent premature convergence effectively, and can provide a wide range of selecting control parameters for GA. |
