Evolutionary Computation
Winter 1996, Vol. 4, No. 4, Pages 395-404
(doi: 10.1162/evco.1996.4.4.395)
Logarithmic Convergence of Random Heuristic Search
Article PDF (640.57 KB)
Abstract
This paper speaks to the inherent emergent behavior of genetic search. For completeness and generality, a class of stochastic search algorithms, random heuristic search, is reviewed. A general convergence theorem for this class is then proved. Since the simple genetic algorithm (GA) is an instance of random heuristic search, a corollary is a result concerning GAs and time to convergence.