Handbook of Metaheuristic Algorithms

Chapter Eleven: Solution encoding and initialization operator

Abstract

The very first thing to do to apply a metaheuristic algorithm to an optimization problem is to decide the solution encoding schema. Another issue related to the solution encoding that we need to take into account at the same time is the design of the initialization operator. For the solution encoding issue, the data clustering problem is used as an example to show how and why this optimization problem can be solved by different solution encoding schemata. The reasons to develop different solution encoding schemata are also discussed. Among them are limitations of memory space and computation time, the particular algorithm, and the combination of two or more algorithms. As for ...