sGA: A Structured Genetic Algorithm.

For more than two decades, genetic algorithms (GAs) have been studied by researchers from different fields and brought to their present form. Over the years, many modifications have been suggested to alleviate difficulties encountered by GAs in solving different problems. Despite these modifications, with the increase in applications, traditional GAs remain inadequate for many practical purposes. This paper introduces a new genetic model called the Structured Genetic Algorithm (sGA) to address some of the difficulties encountered by the simple genetic approaches in solving various types of problems. The novelty of this genetic model lies primarily in its redundant genetic material and a gene activation mechanism which utilises a multi-layered structure for the chromosome. This representation provides many advantages in search and optimisation. For example, it can retain multiple (alternative) solutions or parameter spaces in its representation. In effect, it also works as a long-term d..