encodings.md

1. Introduction
2. Fitness functions
3. Encodings
4. Algorithms
5. Genetic operators
6. Stop conditions
7. Metrics
8. Miscellaneous

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Encodings

The library defines several GA classes instead of using just a single one. The difference between these is the encoding type used to represent the problems and their solutions. Each of the GA classes is for a particular encoding type, and it can only be used for objective functions using the same encoding type.

The below table lists each of the GA classes in the library, the encoding (or gene) type used by them, and the problem (or fitness function) type they can be used for:

GA class	Encoding type	Problem type
BinaryGA	BinaryGene	Binary-encoded
RCGA	RealGene	Floating-point-encoded
PermutationGA	PermutationGene	Combinatorial
IntegerGA	IntegerGene	Integer-encoded

The encoding also determines which crossover and mutation methods can be used in the GA as these genetic operators also depend on the encoding, and are defined for a particular gene type.

All of these GA classes are defined in the main gapp namespace.

// The fitness function uses permutation encoding, so we
// use PermutationGA
PermutationGA{}.solve(problems::TSP52{});

// The fitness function uses real-encoding, so we use RCGA
RCGA{}.solve(problems::Sphere{}, Bounds{ -10.0, 10.0 });

// The fitness function uses binary-encoding, so we use the
// BinaryGA class
BinaryGA{}.solve(problems::Sphere{});

Solution representation

How the candidate solutions to a problem are going be encoded in the GA is determined by the gene type. The representation of the solutions will always be a vector of the gene type used. There is currently no way to change this to use some other data structure instead of a vector, so this should be taken into account when defining new encodings.

template<typename GeneType>
using Chromosome = std::vector<GeneType>;

The candidates contain some more information in addition to their chromosomes, like their fitness vectors, but these are independent of the gene type. They are represented by the Candidate class.

A population is then made up of several candidates encoded in this way.

template<typename GeneType>
using Population = std::vector<Candidate<GeneType>>;

Mixed encodings

For mixed encodings, where each gene might have a different type, the recommendation is to use std::variant for the gene type.

Variable chromosome lengths

The length of the chromosomes is specified as part of the fitness function. Normally, this will be a constant value, meaning that all the solutions will have the same chromosome length throughout a run. However, using a constant chromosome length is not a requirement as long as all parts of the GA can handle different lengths. The parts which must be able to do this are the:

• fitness function
• crossover operator
• mutation operator
• repair function

The crossover and mutation operators both provide an allow_variable_chrom_length() method that can be used to check if they support this or not.

Custom encodings

It is also possible to use a different encoding type by defining a new GA class. In order to do this, you have to:

• define the gene type that will be used
• define a specialization for GaTraits<GeneType>
• specialize is_bounded<GeneType> if needed
• define the GA class, derived from GA<GeneType>
• define crossover and mutation operators for the new encoding

The gene type may be anything, with one restriction: the types already used for the existing encodings are reserved and can't be used to define new encodings. See <encoding/gene_types.hpp> for the types that are already in use.

using MyGeneType = std::variant<double, int>;

The specialization of GaTraits<T> for the gene type is required in order to define some attributes of the GA. These are the default crossover and mutation operators that will be used by the GA when they are not specified explicitly, and the default mutation probability used for the mutation operator:

namespace gapp
{
    template<>
    struct GaTraits<MyGeneType>
    {
        using DefaultCrossover = MyCrossover;
        using DefaultMutation  = MyMutation;
        static Probability defaultMutationRate(size_t chrom_len) { return 1.0 / chrom_len; }
    };

}; // namespace gapp

Specializing the is_bounded<T> variable template is only needed if the gene type used should have it's lower and upper bounds specified for each gene in the solve method. The value should be true in this case, and false otherwise (which is the default value used in the primary template).

namespace gapp
{
    // This isn't technically needed, since false is the default value
    template<>
    inline constexpr bool is_bounded<MyGeneType> = false;

} // namespace gapp

The actual GA class should be derived from GA<T> using the desired gene type for the type parameter T. The derived class only has to implement the generateCandidate method, and optionally, the initialize method:

class MyGA : public GA<MyGeneType>
{
public:
    // Generate a random candidate solution. This is used to
    // create the initial population.
    Candidate<GeneType> generateCandidate() const override
    {
        Candidate<GeneType> candidate;
        // ...
        return candidate;
    }
};

In addition to everything above, a crossover and a mutation operator will also have to be defined for this encoding type, as these operators depend on the encoding type, and the operators included in the library will not work for new encodings.

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Next: Algorithms