Populations of multipopulation genetic algorithms (MPGAs) parallely evolve with some interaction mechanisms. Previous studies have shown that the interaction structures can impact on the performance of MPGAs to some extent. This paper introduces the concept of complex networks such as ring-shaped networks and small-world networks to study how interaction structures and their parameters influence the MPGAs, where subpopulations are regarded as nodes and their interaction or migration of elites between subpopulations as edges. After solving the flexible job-shop scheduling problem (FJSP) by MPGAs with different parameters of interaction structures, simulation results were measured by criteria, such as success rate and average optimal value. The analysis reveals that (1) the smaller the average path length (APL) of the network is, the higher the propagation rate will be; (2) the performance of MPGAs increased first and then decreased along with the decrease of APL, indicating that, for better performance, the networks should have a proper APL, which can be adjusted by changing the structural parameters of networks; and (3) because the edge number of small-world networks remains unchanged with different rewiring possibilities of edges, the change in performance indicates that the MPGA can be improved by a more proper interaction structure of subpopulations as other conditions remain unchanged.

中文翻译：

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网络科学视角的具有不同交互结构的多种群遗传算法解决灵活的车间作业调度问题

多种群遗传算法（MPGA）的种群并行发展与某些相互作用机制。先前的研究表明，相互作用结构可以在一定程度上影响MPGA的性能。本文介绍了诸如环形网络和小世界网络之类的复杂网络的概念，以研究相互作用结构及其参数如何影响MPGA，其中将亚种群视为节点，并将它们的相互作用或精英之间的迁移或迁移作为边缘。在通过具有不同交互结构参数的MPGA解决了柔性作业车间调度问题（FJSP）之后，根据成功率和平均最优值等标准对仿真结果进行了测量。分析表明，（1）网络的平均路径长度（APL）越小，传播率越高；（2）MPGA的性能随着APL的下降先上升后下降，这表明网络为了获得更好的性能，应具有适当的APL，可以通过更改网络的结构参数来对其进行调整；（3）由于小世界网络的边缘数量在边缘重新布线的可能性不同的情况下保持不变，因此性能的变化表明，当其他条件保持不变时，可以通过更适当的亚种群相互作用结构来改善MPGA。