Abstract
Multi-parent crossovers have shown their superiority over classic two-parent crossovers in several problems. However, they still lack theoretical foundation to support the advantages of using more than two parents. In this paper we propose a uniform population model that helps analyze the behavior of crossover beyond the influence of selection process and the number of parents. An analysis of the probability for multi-parent diagonal crossover to obtain the optimal solution is derived accordingly. Analytical results demonstrate the advantage and limitation of multi-parent crossovers over two-parent cross-over. © Springer-Verlag 2004.