A Genetic Programming System with a Procedural Program Representation

Published

July 1, 2001

Author(s)

John G. Hagedorn, J E. Devaney

Abstract

We describe the status of a genetic programming system that is based on a procedural program representation. The procedural representation is closely related to the high level programming languages used by human programmers; it includes features such as hierarchies of procedure calls, with arguments lists that allow multiple output values from each procedure. This representation is structurally different than previous representations used in GP and is expected to have different evolutionary properties. The system architecture is presented and specific benefits as well as problems and solutions arising from this program representation are described. Two mutation-like operations, repair and pruning, are introduced. A population visualization technique is described that includes the graphical presentation of program structure, ancestry, and fitness. This visualization tool and other system instrumentation are used to investigate population diversity and fitness evolution. An unexpected benefit of the pruning operation is also described.

Proceedings Title

Proceedings of the Late Breaking Papers in Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2001 (GECCO)

Conference Dates

July 7-11, 2001

Conference Title

Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference

Pub Type

Conferences

Keywords

ancestry visualization, Genetic programming, population visualization, procedural representation, program visualization, pruning

Citation

Hagedorn, J. and Devaney, J. (2001), A Genetic Programming System with a Procedural Program Representation, Proceedings of the Late Breaking Papers in Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference 2001 (GECCO) (Accessed November 8, 2024)