Scheduling of Genetic Algorithms in a Noisy Environment

In this paper, we develop new methods for adjusting configuration parameters of genetic algorithms operating in a noisy environment. Such methods are related to the scheduling of resources for tests performed in genetic algorithms. Assuming that the population size is given, we address two problems related to the design of efficient scheduling algorithms specifically important in noisy environments. First, we study the duration-scheduling problem that is related to setting dynamically the duration of each generation. Second, we study the sample-allocation problem that entails the adaptive determination of the number of evaluations taken from each candidate in a generation. In our approach, we model the search process as a statistical selection process and derive equations useful for these problems. Our results show that our adaptive procedures improve the performance of genetic algorithms over that of commonly used static ones.