Nature Inspired Algorithms

The aim of the lecture is to provide an introduction to nature-inspired algorithms, such as evolutionary algorithms, neural networks, etc.

The materials for the lecture and tutorials are published on this page.

The exam will be oral with time for preparation. The exam should test the topics covered in the lecture and their applications. A detailed description of the exam and a list of examined topics is on a separate page.

Lesson Plan

Date	Topic
Feb 19	Introduction - artificial intelligence, computational intelligence
Feb 26	Reinforcement Learning - Q-learning, SARSA, multi-agent reinforcement learning
Mar 5	Evolutionary Algorithms - Simple Genetic Algorithm, Operators, Fitness, Source code from tutorial
Mar 12	Evolutionary Algorithms - Continuous and Combinatorial Optimization
Mar 19	Evolutionary Algorithms - Genetic Programming
Mar 26	Swarm Algorithms - Particle Swarm Optimization, Ant Colony Optimization
Mar 2	Neural Networks - Introduction
Apr 9	Neural Networks - RBF Networks, Recurrent Neural Networks
Apr 16	Neural Networks - Convolutional Networks and Image Processing
Apr 23	Neuroevolution
Apr 30	Deep Reinforcement Learning
May 7	Artificial Life
May 14	???
May 21	???

Tutorials

In the tutorials, we will implement some of the algorithms/models from the lecture and will experiment with them. In order to obtain the credit, you need to solve three homework assignments that will be published during the semester.

Assignments

Knapsack problem - deadline March 22, 2026.
Vehicle routing problem - deadline April 12, 2026.
Neuroevolution - deadline May 17, 2026.

You will submit your solutions to the Postal Owl. You can enroll in this system here. Always submit a Jupyter notebook with all the code needed to generate the outputs (tables, plots). Use a similar format as in the materials for the tutorials, i.e. interleave code and explanations.

Topics covered

Date	Topic
Feb 23	Introduction - Python libraries for ML
Mar 2	Reinforcement Learning
Mar 9	Evolutionary Algorithms - introduction
Mar 16	Evolutionary Algorithms - continuous optimization
Mar 23	Evolutionary Algorithms - genetic programming
Mar 30	Swarm Optimization - PSO, ACO
Apr 6	Easter Monday (tutorials cancelled)
Apr 13	Neural Networks - Introduction
Apr 20	Neural Networks - RBF and recurrent networks
Apr 27	Neural Networks - Convolutional Networks
May 4	Neuroevolution
May 11	Deep Reinforcement Learning
May 18	Artificial Life