Measuring, Enabling and Comparing Modularity, Regularity and Hierarchy in Evolutionary DesignFor computer-automated design systems to scale to complex designs they must be able to produce designs that exhibit the characteristics of modularity, regularity and hierarchy - characteristics that are found both in man-made and natural designs. Here we claim that these characteristics are enabled by implementing the attributes of combination, control-flow and abstraction in the representation. To support this claim we use an evolutionary algorithm to evolve solutions to different sizes of a table design problem using five different representations, each with different combinations of modularity, regularity and hierarchy enabled and show that the best performance happens when all three of these attributes are enabled. We also define metrics for modularity, regularity and hierarchy in design encodings and demonstrate that high fitness values are achieved with high values of modularity, regularity and hierarchy and that there is a positive correlation between increases in fitness and increases in modularity. regularity and hierarchy.
Document ID
20050240159
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Hornby, Gregory S. (QSS Group, Inc. Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
August 23, 2013
Publication Date
January 1, 2005
Subject Category
Mathematical And Computer Sciences (General)
Meeting Information
Meeting: Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference (GECCO''05)