Evolutionary Optimization: Pitfalls and Booby Traps

Evolutionary computation (EC), a collective name for a range of metaheuristic black-box optimization algo-rithms, is one of the fastest-growing areas in computer science. Many manuals and "how-to"s on the use of different EC methods as well as a variety of free or commercial software libraries are widely available nowadays. However, when one of these methods is applied to a real-world task, there can be many pitfalls and booby traps lurking | certain aspects of the optimization problem that may lead to unsatisfactory results even if the algorithm appears to be correctly implemented and executed. These include the convergence issues, ruggedness, deceptiveness, and neutrality in the fitness landscape, epistasis, non-separability, noise leading to the need for robustness, as well as dimensionality and scalability issues, among others. In this article, we systematically discuss these related hindrances and present some possible remedies. The goal is to equip practitioners and researchers alike with a clear picture and understanding of what kind of problems can render EC applications unsuccessful and how to avoid them from the start.