Multi-chromosomal representations and chromosome shuffling in evolutionary algorithms

We present experiments investigating the use of multichromosomal representations in evolutionary algorithms. Specifically, the conventional representation of parameters on a single chromosome is compared to a genotype encoding with multiple chromosomes on a set of test functions. In this context we present chromosome shuffling, a genetic operator recombining complete chromosomes based on biological evidence. The hypothesis that the multichromosomal representation ameliorates the transmission of good subsolutions to the population is tested on functions of varying degree of complexity.