Natural vs. Unnatural Decomposition in Cooperative Coevolution

摘要

Problem decomposition is the first step to apply a cooperative coevolutionary algorithm (CCEA) to a problem. This step determines how to divide the problem into components with an appropriate granularity. Most of the current methods implement a natural-based decomposition where each component plays a specific role or represents an emergent property. However, there could exist some real problems that the roles or the properties are hard to determine or somewhat unclear. This paper offers a solution by decomposing the problems in an unnatural way, which implements a blind decomposition. Our primary analysis indicates that the blind decomposition is feasible. We also provide some basic advice on how to implement the blind decomposition in combination with different collaboration methods.