Evolutionary computation (EC) is an umbrella term for a family of randomised optimisation algorithms that largely take inspiration from biological evolution. Essentially, these algorithms operate on a population of candidate solutions for the optimisation problem at hand. They iteratively improve the population by applying bio-inspired mechanisms such as selection, mutation and recombination until some predefined termination criterion is met. Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) are general purpose solvers and have proven to perform exceptionally well in many (black-box) real-world applications, in the fields of single- and multi-objective optimisation, and for both numerical and combinatorial optimisation.
This block seminar course will be held in English, towards the middle/end of the 2024/25 winter semester. Enrolment is restricted to at most 20 Bachelor or Master students, preferably with a background in optimisation. Students will work in groups of two on different EC-related topics, including but not limited to evolutionary optimisation in the continuous and discrete domain, evolution strategies, genetic programming, evolutionary multi-objective optimisation, principled performance assessment, and more recent EC branches like evolutionary diversity optimisation~(EDO) and quality diversity~(QD). Each group will be assigned a paper from the research literature, which will serve as the starting point for an in-depth investigation of a specific topic; the results of this investigation will be presented in class and compiled into a report.
Preferably students should have a background in optimisation.
Registration to the seminar is handled via the SuPra system.
Prof. Dr. Holger H. Hoos
Chair Holder, Alexander von Humboldt Professor
E-mail: hh[at]aim[dot]rwth-aachen[dot]de
Phone: +49 241 80 21451
