Directed mutation operators – an overview

Directed mutation has shown to improve the efficiency of evolutionary algorithms significantly for a broad spectrum of optimization problems. When the first mutation operators of this kind, however, suffered from the asymmetry parameter influencing the mutation strength, in the meantime there are several new directed mutation operators available which overcome this drawback. The aim of this paper is to give an overview of all different operators in one single place. Their characteristics will be presented and their advantages and disadvantages are discussed. At the end a comparison and a summary is provided.