The paper presents for the first time automatic module acquisition and evolution within the graph based Cartesian Genetic Programming method. The method has been tested on a set of even parity problems and compared with Cartesian Genetic Programming without modules. Results are given that show that the new modular method evolves solutions up to 20 times quicker than the original non-modular method and that the speedup is more pronounced on larger problems. Analysis of some of the evolved modules shows that often they are lower order parity functions. Prospects for further improvement of the method are discussed.
['James Alfred Walker', 'Julian F. Miller']
Evolution and Acquisition of Modules in Cartesian Genetic Programming