Introduction to 20 years of grammatical evolution

Abstract

Grammatical Evolution (GE) is a Evolutionary Algorithm (EA) that takes inspiration from the biological evolutionary process to search for solutions to problems. This chapter gives a brief introduction to EAs, paying particular attention to those involved in automatic program generation.We then describe grammars, the core building blocks of programs, before detailing how GE’s usage of them is one of the key differentiators between it and other EAs. We give a brief overview of GE and its use, before looking at some of the key developments in the past 20 years, along with a detailed look at the chapters in this book.