Usage of Frequently Used Node in Variable Size Genetic Network Programming

This paper describes a kind of replacement mechanism which improves the generalization ability of Variable Size Genetic Network Programming (GNPvs). GNPvs is an extension of Genetic Network Programming (GNP), which has changeable number of nodes. Inspired by the theory of Evolution by Gene Duplication, the non-frequently used nodes are replaced with the frequently used nodes in the proposed method, which can make the individual survive under the selection pressure as usual, but eventually might accumulate mutations that produce new features of individuals for adapting new environments. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by comparing with the performance of GNPvs and GNP on a well-known dynamic multi-agent test bed - Tile world.