Fast evolutionary programming through search momentum and multiple offspring strategy

A new algorithm that helps to accelerate convergence as well as to enhance the diversity of the evolutionary programming (EP) search technique is proposed, based on an individual structure concept. The major components of the algorithm that lie behind its good performance includes scaling, selection strategy, the use of age and the search direction (or momentum) vector, and multiple offspring per parent. Not only are the multiple offspring approach and the search direction vector concept novel but the combination of these features used for EP is also new. Through a benchmark test, its search performance has been found to be superior to the conventional EP and one of its acceleration methods