abstract
- © 2022 IEEE.Population size is an important variable in evolutionary algorithms (EA). Its proper configuration improves the performance of the search process not only in terms of the fitness function but also for the resources required. This article introduced a population management mechanism that includes different operators. Such operators are designed and applied based on the diversity of the population. In general terms, the operators address problems in EA regarding stagnation and the inefficient use of the function evaluations. As a case of study, the proposed method is applied in the Differential Evolution (DE) to provide it the ability to change its population size according to its needs. The experimental results and comparisons demonstrate greatly improved performance when compared to the unmodified DE, some of its most successful variants, and other much more complex algorithms from the state-of-the-art.