Influence of Probability of Variation Operator on the Performance of Quantum-Inspired Evolutionary Algorithm for 0/1 Knapsack Problem

Quantum-Inspired Evolutionary Algorithm (QEA) has been shown to be better performing than classical Ge- netic Algorithm based evolutionary techniques for combinatorial optimization problems like 0/1 knapsack problem. QEA uses quantum computing-inspired representation of solution called Q-bit individual consisting of Q-bits. The probability amplitudes of the Q-bits are changed by application of Q-gate operator, which is classical analogous of quantum rotation operator. The Q-gate operator is the only variation operator used in QEA, which along with some problem specific heuris- tic provides exploitation of the properties of the best solutions. In this paper, we analyzed the characteristics of the QEA for 0/1 knapsack problem and showed that a probability in the range 0.3 to 0.4 for the application of the Q-gate variation operator has the greatest likelihood of making a good balance between exploration and exploitation. Experimental results agree with the analytical finding.