Evolutionary algorithms : concepts and applications

Evolutionary algorithms are a family of stochastic problem-solving techniques, within the broader category of what we might call “natural-metaphor models”, together with neural networks, ant systems, etc. They find their inspiration in biology and, in particular, they are based on mimicking the mechanisms of what we know as “natural evolution”. During the last twenty-five years these techniques have been applied to a large number of problems of great practical and economic importance with excellent results. This paper presents a survey of these techniques and a few sample applications.