Co-evolutionary Constraint Satisfaction

This paper introduces CCS, a Co-evolutionary approach to Constraint Satisfaction. Two types of objects — constraints and solutions — interact in a way modelled after predator and prey relations in nature. It is shown that co-evolution considerably focuses the genetic search. In addition, the new technique of life-time fitness evaluation (LTFE) is introduced. Its partial but continuous nature allows for efficient fitness evaluation. Moreover, co-evolution and LTFE nicely complement each other. Hence, their combined use further improves the performance of the evolutionary search.