On the relationship of degree of separability with depth of evolution in decomposition for cooperative coevolution

Problem decomposition determines how subcomponents are created that have a vital role in the performance of cooperative coevolution. Cooperative coevolution naturally appeals to fully separable problems that have low interaction amongst subcomponents. The interaction amongst subcomponents is defined by the degree of separability. Typically, in cooperative coevolution, each subcomponent is implemented as a sub-population that is evolved in a round-robin fashion for a specified depth of evolution. This paper examines the relationship between the depth of evolution and degree of separability for different types of global optimisation problems. The results show that the depth of evolution is an important attribute that affects the performance of cooperative coevolution and can be used to ascertain the nature of the problem in terms of the degree of separability.