Application of an incremental evolution technique to spacecraft design optimization

Based on the intuition that it is often easier to learn to solve difficult problems after similar, simpler problems have been learned, incremental evolution is an extension to evolutionary algorithms in which the evaluation function against which a population is evolved is scaled over time. This paper presents an application of incremental evolution to the problem of physical design optimization of a Mars microprobe spacecraft. Experimental results that demonstrated the utility of the approach are presented, as well as some new insights into the behavior of incremental evolution which may explain its success