Community detection based on modularity and an improved genetic algorithm

Complex networks are widely applied in every aspect of human society, and community detection is a research hotspot in complex networks. Many algorithms use modularity as the objective function, which can simplify the algorithm. In this paper, a community detection method based on modularity and an improved genetic algorithm (MIGA) is put forward. MIGA takes the modularity Q as the objective function, which can simplify the algorithm, and uses prior information (the number of community structures), which makes the algorithm more targeted and improves the stability and accuracy of community detection. Meanwhile, MIGA takes the simulated annealing method as the local search method, which can improve the ability of local search by adjusting the parameters. Compared with the state-of-art algorithms, simulation results on computer-generated and four real-world networks reflect the effectiveness of MIGA.