Binary String Fitness Characterization and Comparative Partner Selection in Genetic Programming

The premise behind all evolutionary methods is ldquosurvival of the fittest,rdquo and consequently, individuals require a quantitative fitness measure. This paper proposes a novel strategy for evaluating individual's relative strengths and weaknesses, as well as representing these in the form of a binary string fitness characterization (BSFC); in addition, as customary, an overall fitness value is assigned to each individual. Utilizing the BSFC, we demonstrate both novel population evaluation measures and a pairwise mating strategy, comparative partner selection (CPS), with the aim of evolving a population that promotes effective solutions by reducing population-wide weaknesses. This strategy is tested with six standard genetic programming benchmarking problems.