Understanding elitism

While the average fitness of the genetic algorithm population generally increases as generations go by, it is possible that, at any point, the best individual(s) of the current generation will be lost. This is due to the selection, crossover, and mutation operators altering the individuals in the process of creating the next generation. In many cases, the loss is temporary as these individuals (or better individuals) will be re-introduced into the population in a future generation.

However, if we want to guarantee that the best individual(s) always make it to the next generation, we can apply the optional elitism strategy. This means that the top n individuals (n being a small, predefined parameter) are duplicated into the next generation before we fill the rest of the available spots with offspring that are created using selection, crossover, and mutation. The elite individuals who were duplicated are still eligible for the selection process, so they can still...