Genetic Algorithms- An introduction and applications and Optimization through Intelligent Techniques

Dr. G.L. Samuel Manufacturing Engineering Section Department of Mechanical Engineering INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, MADRAS Chennai 600 036

1.0

Introduction

In todays rapidly changing manufacturing scenario, manufacturers must adapt to respond effectively to severe competitiveness and increasing demand of products with improved quality, functionality, and performance. To remain competitive and promote growth, such rapidly changing market demands necessitate advanced manufacturing systems with improved performance. The decisive point is that most of the production processes are underutilized; and the use of mature, accessible mathematical technology unlocks that latent capacity of the manufacturing system, which is of considerable value. A significant improvement in process efficiency may be obtained by process parameter optimization that identifies and determines the regions of critical process control factors leading to desired outputs or responses with acceptable variations ensuring a lower cost of manufacturing. Optimization methods in manufacturing systems, considered to be a vital tool for continual improvement in product conformance and process characterization. Performance of a manufacturing system is managed by modifying the inputs (decisions made) as shown in Fig.1. Improved performance with existing assets is achieved by the best possible modifications: altogether, the optimum, which depends on the values of the uncontrolled inputs. Input Layout Cycle time Process parameters Un controlled inputs Raw material condition Ambient conditions Fig.1. Improving performance of a manufacturing system Manufacturing System Performance metric Advanced Product tolerance Output Production rate

Efficient computing techniques are essential for modeling the inputoutput and in-process characteristics of the manufacturing system and determination of optimal conditions for improving its performance.

2.0

Soft computing techniques

Soft computing, a term coined by Zadeh is basically a synergistic integration of three computing paradigms: neural networks, fuzzy logic and genetic algorithm to provide a frame work for flexible information processing applications designed operate in the real world. All these

techniques differ from one another in their time scales of operation as highlighted in Fig. 2.

Soft computing techniques

Fuzzy logic (Linguistic information)

Genetic Algorithms (Evolutionary algorithms)

Neural networks (Learning generalization)

Fig.2 Soft computing techniques for optimization of manufacturing systems These soft computing techniques exploit the tolerance for imprecision, uncertainty and partial truth to achieve tractability, robustness, low solution cost and better rapport with reality. Genetic Algorithms (GA) are one the popular techniques in optimization of manufacturing systems.

3.0

Genetic algorithm

The working of GA (Goldberg, 2006) generally preferred for large and complex optimization problems, is based on three basic operators, viz., reproduction, crossover, and mutation, in order to offer a population of solutions. The algorithm creates new population from an initial random

population (obtained from different feasible combination of process decision variables) by reproduction, crossover, and mutation in an iterative process. The selection, crossover and mutation on initial population create a new generation, which is evaluated with pre-defined termination criteria. The procedure for one generation of genetic algorithm is shown in Fig.3.

1. Initial population

5. New population

2. Fitness test Ideal case

Mutation

One generation of basic genetic algorithm

3. Selection 4. Children

Cross over

Fig.3 Basic genetic algorithm

3.1

Population

A population is generated by choosing random input values. There are no fixed rules for size of the population and it is dependent upon the type of problem. 3.2 Representation of chromosome

A suitable coding scheme is defined to describe the population composed of number of individuals. Each individual is represented by a finite array of symbols, known as a string (chromosome). Each individual string encodes a possible solution in the given problem space.

3.3

Fitness evaluation

The fitness of individual strings is a relative matter. Population is evaluated based on corresponding values of the formulated objective function. An individual which dominates other members of a population by taking all criteria into consideration is considered fitter. The most dominant, i.e. those who dominate all others are referred to as Pareto solutions. 3.4 Selection

It is a process of generating a mating pool by selecting good fitness strings from the population. GAs operates over a number of generations. Selection methods can be employed by many approaches like roulette wheel, tournament. Fitter solutions (i.e. those most dominant) have a better chance of surviving than the other weaker individuals.

3.5

Cross over

Two strings are picked from the selected mating pool at random and chromosome patterns between individuals are exchanged to create offspring for the next generation. In a single point cross over operation, a cross over site is chosen at random and all bits to the right of the cross over site are exchanged between the two strings as shown in Fig.4.
1 1 1|010 1 0 0 |1 1 0 1 1 1|01 0 1 1 1 |1 1 0

Fig.4 Single point cross over Single point cross over preserves the maximum amount of information between generations, but it is restricted in search capability. Normally cross over is not performed on entire population. A cross over probability of pc dictates that pc x 100 percent strings in the population are used in the cross over operation and that best(1-pc)X100 per cent of current population can be copied deterministically to the new population, this performed at random.

3.6

Mutation

Mutation operation is used to enhance the search in a GA. The mutation operator flips a bit string with a very small mutation probability. Mutation is necessary to maintain diversity in the population which would otherwise converge very quickly to very similar strings.

3.7

Termination

There are no definitive methods of establishing how many generations a GA should run for. Simple problems may converge on good solutions after only 20 or 30 generations. More complex problems may need more. It is not unusual to run a GA for 400 generations for more complex problems such as jobshops. 3.8 (i) Advantages of GA It has the global view of search space and internal parallel processing capability to obtain better solutions to the problems (ii) Search direction or transition rule is probabilistic, not deterministic, in nature, and hence, the chance of avoiding local optimality is more (iii) it works with a population of solution points rather than a single solution point as in conventional techniques, and provides multiple near-optimal solutions (iv) It has the ability to solve convex, and multi-modal function, multiple objectives and nonlinear response function problems, (v) It can be applied to both discrete and continuous objective functions.

3.9 (i) (ii)

Limitations of GA Convergence of the GA is not always assured No universal rule exists for appropriate choice of algorithm parameters, such as population size, number of generations to be evaluated, crossover probability, mutation probability, and string length;

(iii)

GA may require a significant execution time to attain near-optimal solutions, and convergence speed of the algorithm may be slow.

(iv)

Moreover the repeatability of results obtained by GA with same initial decision variable setting conditions is not guaranteed.

4.0

References 1. David Goldberg, (2006),Genetic algorithms in search, Optimization & Machine learning, Pearson education.
2. Nikos Drakos, (1997), Genetic Algorithms as a Computational Tool For Design,

Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds.