Memetic Algorithms

Abstract

Memetic algorithms provide one of the most effective and flexible metaheuristic approaches for tackling hard optimization problems. Memetic algorithms address the difficulty of developing high-performance universal heuristics by encouraging the exploitation of multiple heuristics acting in concert, making use of all available sources of information for a problem. This approach has resulted in a rich arsenal of heuristic algorithms and metaheuristic frameworks for many problems. This chapter discusses the philosophy of the memetic paradigm, lays out the structure of a memetic algorithm, develops several example algorithms, surveys recent work in the field, and discusses the possible future directions of memetic algorithms.