Edge recombination operator

The edge recombination operator (ERO) is an operator that creates a path that is similar to a set of existing paths (parents) by looking at the edges rather than the vertices. The main application of this is for crossover in genetic algorithms when a genotype with non-repeating gene sequences is needed such as for the travelling salesman problem. It was described by Darrell Whitley and others in 1989. The edge recombination operator (ERO) is an operator that creates a path that is similar to a set of existing paths (parents) by looking at the edges rather than the vertices. The main application of this is for crossover in genetic algorithms when a genotype with non-repeating gene sequences is needed such as for the travelling salesman problem. It was described by Darrell Whitley and others in 1989. ERO is based on an adjacency matrix, which lists the neighbors of each node in any parent.