The Automatic Acquisition, Evolution and Reuse of Modules in Cartesian Genetic Programming

J.A. Walker, J.F. Miller
2008 IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation  
This paper presents a generalization of the graphbased genetic programming (GP) technique known as Cartesian genetic programming (CGP). We have extended CGP by utilizing automatic module acquisition, evolution, and reuse. To benchmark the new technique, we have tested it on: various digital circuit problems, two symbolic regression problems, the lawnmower problem, and the hierarchical if-and-only-if problem. The results show the new modular method evolves solutions quicker than the original
more » ... odular method, and the speedup is more pronounced on larger problems. Also, the new modular method performs favorably when compared with other GP methods. Analysis of the evolved modules shows they often produce recognizable functions. Prospects for further improvements to the method are discussed.
doi:10.1109/tevc.2007.903549 fatcat:vdjbnadxy5e4jkww66ptlizlcu