Population size
Population size is the number of individuals, entities, observations, or candidate solutions comprising a defined population.
Optimization Algorithms: AI techniques for design, planning, and control problems
Population size is the number of candidate solutions maintained in a population-based optimization algorithm.
- How it is used
- Sets the number of candidate solutions available for genetic-algorithm selection, crossover, and mutation.
- How deep it goes
- Explains fixed and adaptive sizing, including exploration-convergence trade-offs, but does not provide a universal sizing formula.
- Examples
- Uses a five-solution ticket-pricing population and a table pairing candidate values with binary encodings and objective scores.
- What you can do after
- Apply it by sizing or adapting a genetic-algorithm population to balance diversity, exploration, and convergence.
Evolutionary Deep Learning: Genetic algorithms and neural networks
Population size is the number of individuals simulated in each generation of an evolutionary algorithm.
- How it is used
- Uses population size to configure how many candidate solutions evolve during each genetic-algorithm generation.
- How deep it goes
- Defines the parameter, relates it to chromosome complexity and generations, and stops short of prescribing a universal value.
- Examples
- Exercises vary population size in genetic-algorithm and NEAT notebooks, including tests of very small populations and resulting speciation.
- What you can do after
- Practice tuning population size by rerunning evolutionary experiments and comparing effects on evolution, results, and speciation.
Related concepts
- genetic algorithmconfigures · A genetic algorithm is an evolutionary optimization method that improves a population of candidate solutions through fitness-based selection and variation, often including recombination and mutation.
- evolutionconfigures · Evolution is the cumulative change in the characteristics, structure, or behavior of a population or system across successive generations or states.
- offspringconfigures · Offspring are new candidate individuals or solutions produced from one or more parent candidates through reproduction or variation.
- conditional probabilityaddressed by · Conditional probability is the probability of an event or variable value given that specified information, an event, or another variable’s value is known.
- populationhas part · A population is a defined group or complete set of people, units, observations, or candidate solutions considered together in a particular context.
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