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December 23, 2005

History of Evolutionary Computation

Genetic Argonaut has posted the first posting in a series on the history of evolutionary computation, which says that the initial idea for evolutionary computation was inspired by a science fiction story called "Insel Der Krebse" (The Crab Island or The Island of the Crabs) by Anatolij Dnjeprow.

The article gives two examples that are particularly relevant to artificial inventing, dating back to the 1960s:

• Ingo Rechenberg and Hans-Paul Schwefel's use of a simple evolution strategy to find the most aerodynamic shape for six plane planks linked by five adjustable hinges; and
• Hans-Paul Schwefel's use of evolutionary computation to optimize a supersonic two-phase flashing nozzle.

Check out the posting for more details and photographs.

Posted by Robert at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)
category: Genetic Algorithms

September 22, 2005

Evolutionary computation provides perspective on "intelligent design"

Lee Spector wrote a nice piece in the Boston Globe explaining in layperson's terms how evolutionary computation (EC) works, and pointing out how EC can be useful for enabling people to "appreciate the power of selection operating on random variation when it is stripped of its emotion-laden connections to human origins and is shown to be capable of designing complex solutions to difficult problems."

Of most relevance to this site, Prof. Spector describes how the quantum computing circuits that his software has evolved are not only difficult for humans in general to understand or design, "they are extremely difficult for me to understand or design, and I could never have produced the results on my own. I am not a designer equal to that task, but evolution is."

Posted by Robert at 7:05 PM | Comments (0)
category: Genetic Algorithms

Evolving clearer fingerprints

The National Science Foundation (NSF) reports on the use of a genetic algorithm to evolve a computer program for compressing digital images of fingerprints. The resulting program consistently outperforms the current world-standard program for fingerprint image compression, WSQ, developed by the FBI and others in the 1990s.

Images showing the improvement of successive generations of the genetic algorithm can be found at the link above.

Posted by Robert at 6:56 PM | Comments (0)
category: Genetic Algorithms

August 23, 2005

A few practical applications of genetic algorithms

IlliGAL Blogging has several recent postings on real-world applications of genetic algorithms:

• design of better diesel engines;
• curvilinear design in architecture; and
• molecular modeling.

Posted by Robert at 6:21 PM | Comments (0)
category: Genetic Algorithms

July 28, 2005

Genetic algorithms optimize complex pipe design

Australian firm Optimatics reports that it has used genetic algorithms to help more than 80 major clients in Australia, the U.S., Canada, and Britain optimize the design of pipes for providing water through cities, towns, and new urban developments. Optimatics claims that its optimization techniques can produce solutions up to 20 percent less expensively than traditional engineering.

Posted by Robert at 11:17 AM | Comments (0)
category: Genetic Algorithms | Technology Industry

Evolutionary computation improves automobile design

NuTech Solutions has issued a press release describing how its ClearVu Engineering technology has been used to solve multidisciplinary optimization problems in car safety applications. Thomas Baeck gave an impressive presentation at GECCO this year describing NuTech's work with a German auto manufacturer to increase the speed and decrease the cost of design without comprising crash safety.

Posted by Robert at 9:28 AM | Comments (0)
category: Genetic Algorithms | Technology Industry

July 22, 2005

Overcoming the software bottleneck

Hardware has always improved more quickly than our ability to write software for it. Although you might think that this "software crisis," as evidenced by increasingly buggy, bloated, and insecure software, is a recent phenomenon, the term "software crisis" was used at least as early as 1972. I remember reading about it in Fred Brooks' classic The Mythical Man Month, first published in 1975.

IPcentral describes one of the current incarnations of this crisis: improvements in hardware for parallel processing and the difficulty of writing software to run on that hardware.

Is this a job for genetic programming or some other automated programming technique? I don't know the answer, but when a technological "crisis" has lasted for 30+ years with no signs of abating, anything is worth a try.

Posted by Robert at 9:00 AM | Comments (0)
category: Design & Engineering | Genetic Algorithms

July 12, 2005

Artificial inventions in science fiction

IlliGAL Blogging links to worldchanging's coverage of a science fiction novel in which the protagonist has "patented using genetic algorithms to patent everything they can permutate from an initial description of a problem domain – not just a better mousetrap, but the set of all possible better mousetraps. Roughly a third of his inventions are legal, a third are illegal, and the remainder are legal but will become illegal as soon as the legislatosaurus wakes up, smells the coffee, and panics." I don't know how prominently these inventions figure in the novel, but it looks like an interesting read, and it captures quite nicely an issue that the law needs to address soon.

Posted by Robert at 9:44 AM | Comments (0)
category: Genetic Algorithms | Software Patents