Multi-offspring genetic algorithm and its application to the traveling salesman problem

The paper provides a multi-offspring genetic algorithm (MO-GA) in accordance with biological evolutionary and mathematical ecological theory, and illustrates its application in the traveling salesman problem (TSP) in comparison to the basic genetic algorithm (BGA). In MO-GA, the number of offsprings is significantly increased as compared to the BGA. MO-GA increases the probability of producing excellent individuals, and also makes the population more competitive, thus yielding considerable improvement. Test results with six TSP examples show that MO-GA has faster speed, and the number and time of iterations are significantly reduced as compared to the BGA.