Game Theory Based Coevolutionary Algorithm: A New Computational Coevolutionary Approach

Game theory is a method of mathematical analysis developed to study the decision making process. In 1928, Von Neumann mathematically proved that every two-person, zero-sum game with many pure finite strategies for each player is deterministic. In the early 50's, Nash presented another concept as the basis for a generalization of Von Neumann's theorem. Another central achievement of game theory is the introduction of evolutionary game theory, by which agents can play optimal strategies in the absence of rationality. Through the process of Darwinian selection, a population of agents can evolve to an Evolutionary Stable Strategy (ESS) as introduced by Maynard Smith in 1982. Keeping pace with these game theoretical studies, the first computer simulation of coevolution was tried out by Hillis. Moreover, Kauffman proposed the NK model to analyze coevolutionary dynamics between different species. He showed how coevolutionary phenomenon reaches static states and that these states are either Nash equilibrium or ESS in game theory. Since studies concerning coevolutionary phenomenon were initiated, there have been numerous other researchers who have developed coevolutionary algorithms. In this paper we propose a new coevolutionary algorithm named Game theory based Coevolutionary Algorithm (GCEA) and we confirm that this algorithm can be a solution of evolutionary problems by searching the ESS. To evaluate this newly designed approach, we solve several test Multiobjective Optimization Problems (MOPs). From the results of these evaluations, we confirm that evolutionary game can be embodied by the coevolutionary algorithm and analyze the optimization performance of our algorithm by comparing the performance of our algorithm with that of other evolutionary optimization algorithms.