A generic construction for crossovers of graph-like structures and its realization in the Eclipse Modeling Framework

In model-driven optimization (MDO), domain-specific models are used to define and solve optimization problems via meta-heuristic search, often via evolutionary algorithms. Models are typically evolved using mutations, which can be formally specified as graph transformations. So far, only mutations have been used to generate new solution models from existing ones; a crossover mechanism has not yet been developed. In this paper, we present a generic crossover construction for graph-like structures, which can be used to implement crossover operators for models in MDO. We prove basic properties of our construction and show how it can be used to implement a whole set of crossover operators that have been proposed for specific problems and situations on graphs. In particular, we present a specialization of our construction to models defined in the Eclipse Modeling Framework.