Mitchell, T. J. (2010) An exploration of evolutionary computation ...

the parameter estimation problem, algorithm performance is measured according to the
matching method described in chapter seven.
1.5 Thesis Structure
The chapters of this thesis have been organised into sections which are largely self-
contained. To aid clarity, the algorithmic and application components of the system have
been separated, such that chapters two–five concern the development and testing of the
evolutionary algorithmic contributions of this thesis in isolation, and chapters six and
seven extend their application to the real-world frequency modulation sound matching
problem. In reality, the development of the matching system involved interplay between
these two components, with evolutionary algorithms developed and tested in application to
benchmark test functions, based upon problems that were encountered in the application
domain.
Chapters two and three provide a review of evolutionary computation, the major types of
evolutionary algorithm and a variety of augmentations to these algorithms which are
intended to enhance performance within rugged, multimodal search domains. The
evolutionary algorithmic developments of this work are described in chapters four and
five, while chapters six and seven provide further review of the frequency modulation
sound matching problem and the performance of traditional and developed algorithms
within this domain. Chapter eight describes a set of perceptual listening tests with a panel
of expert listeners in which the perceived similarity of evolved matches are juxtaposed
with their target sounds.
1.6 Implementation
Experimental results provided in this thesis have been produced by applications written by
the author in C/C++ using GCC under the GNU/Linux operating system. A number of
different synthesis configurations were examined initially using the graphical
programming environment PD (Pure Data) prior to their implementation in C/C++. The
evolutionary algorithms tested herein have been built according to the specifications
described in the relevant literature. Statistical analysis is performed on all results with plots
and comparisons generated by the SPSS statistical analysis software. The listening tests
provided in chapter eight were performed using Max/MSP patches designed specifically
for the task.
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