Journal of Applied Mathematics
Volume 2012 (2012), Article ID 703601, 23 pages
http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/703601
Research Article

A Fuzzy Genetic Algorithm Based on Binary Encoding for Solving Multidimensional Knapsack Problems

M. Jalali Varnamkhasti1 and L. S. Lee2,3

1Department of Basic Science, Islamic Azad University, Dolatabad Branch, Esfahan 84318–11111, Iran
2Laboratory of Computational Statistics and Operations Research, Institute for Mathematical Research, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia
3Department of Mathematics, Faculty of Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, 43400 Serdang, Selangor, Malaysia

Received 3 December 2011; Accepted 14 February 2012

Academic Editor: Hector Pomares

Copyright © 2012 M. Jalali Varnamkhasti and L. S. Lee. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The fundamental problem in genetic algorithms is premature convergence, and it is strongly related to the loss of genetic diversity of the population. This study aims at proposing some techniques to tackle the premature convergence by controlling the population diversity. Firstly, a sexual selection mechanism which utilizes the mate chromosome during selection is used. The second technique focuses on controlling the genetic parameters by applying the fuzzy logic controller. Computational experiments are conducted on the proposed techniques and the results are compared with other genetic operators, heuristics, and local search algorithms commonly used for solving multidimensional 0/1 knapsack problems published in the literature.