Motivation for differential evolution for permutative-based combinatorial problems

Abstract

It is generally accepted that Differential Evolution (DE) was originally designed to solve problems which are defined in continuous form. Some researchers have however, felt that this is a limiting factor on DE, hence there have been vigorous research work to extend the functionalities of DE to include permutative-based combinatorial problems. This chapter sets the scene for the book by discussing the motivation for presenting the foundational theories for a number of variants of DE for permutative-based combinatorial problems. These DE variants are presented by their initiators or proposers, to the best of our knowledge.