Genetic Algorithm: How Evolutionary Search Finds Better Solutions
There are certain problems which are straightforward to optimise because the path to the solution is flat and mathematically well behaved. Others are messy. A delivery company might have hundreds of stops to assign to vehicles. A manufacturer may desire the optimum production schedule for several machines. A data scientist can potentially need to explore thousands of potential combinations of features. When problems are of this type, it is often not feasible to check all possible solutions. A genetic algorithm (GA) works in a different way. Rather than taking a single path to an answer, it operates on a set of potential solutions and continually refines those solutions with the help of ideas borrowed from the process of evolution in biology. Start With a Population The algorithm starts with a number of candidate solutions. Suppose a logistics company in India wants to make an efficient route for their delivery vehicle to go to several locations. Each of the possible or...