Parallelism and evolutionary algorithms

This paper contains a modern vision of the parallelization techniques used for evolutionary algorithms (EAs). The work is motivated by two fundamental facts: first, the different families of EAs have naturally converged in the last decade while parallel EAs (PEAs) seem still to lack unified studies, and second, there is a large number of improvements in these algorithms and in their parallelization that raise the need for a comprehensive survey. We stress the differences between the EA model and its parallel implementation throughout the paper. We discuss the advantages and drawbacks of PEAs. Also, successful applications are mentioned and open problems are identified. We propose potential solutions to these problems and classify the different ways in which recent results in theory and practice are helping to solve them. Finally, we provide a highly structured background relating PEAs in order to make researchers aware of the benefits of decentralizing and parallelizing an EA.