Genetic Programming with One-Point Crossover

In recent theoretical and experimental work on schemata in genetic programming we have proposed a new simpler form of crossover in which the same crossover point is selected in both parent programs. We call this operator one-point crossover because of its similarity with the corresponding operator in genetic algorithms. One-point crossover presents very interesting properties from the theory point of view. In this paper we describe this form of crossover as well as a new variant called strict one-point crossover highlighting their useful theoretical and practical features. We also present experimental evidence which shows that one-point crossover compares favourably with standard crossover.