Specialised Recombinative Operators for Timetabling Problems

This paper discusses a series of recombination operators for the timetabling problem. These operators act upon a direct representation of the timetable and maintain the property of feasibility. That is that there are no conflicts and no overfilled rooms. Various approaches to solving the timetabling problem using evolutionary computing methods are first compared. The recombination operators are then presented and various alternatives for incorporating heuristic knowledge in the search are described. Finally, results are presented comparing the operators on a real timetabling problem.

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