mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Quality and Diversity Optimization: A Unifying Modular Framework

arXiv 1708.09251 ↗First posted 12 May 2017cs.NE cs.AIcited by 111

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Abstract (arXiv)

The optimization of functions to find the best solution according to one or several objectives has a central role in many engineering and research fields. Recently, a new family of optimization algorithms, named Quality-Diversity optimization, has been introduced, and contrasts with classic algorithms. Instead of searching for a single solution, Quality-Diversity algorithms are searching for a large collection of both diverse and high-performing solutions. The role of this collection is to cover the range of possible solution types as much as possible, and to contain the best solution for each type. The contribution of this paper is threefold. Firstly, we present a unifying framework of Quality-Diversity optimization algorithms that covers the two main algorithms of this family (Multi-dimensional Archive of Phenotypic Elites and the Novelty Search with Local Competition), and that highlights the large variety of variants that can be investigated within this family. Secondly, we propose algorithms with a new selection mechanism for Quality-Diversity algorithms that outperforms all the algorithms tested in this paper. Lastly, we present a new collection management that overcomes the erosion issues observed when using unstructured collections. These three contributions are supported by extensive experimental comparisons of Quality-Diversity algorithms on three different experimental scenarios.

Key facts. Cited by 111 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). First posted on arXiv 12 May 2017.

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2021: 13; 2022: 28; 2023: 27; 2024: 15; 2025: 15; 2026: 13.

111 papers.

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  1. 2024Automated Design of Agentic Systemscited by 360
  2. 2024Rainbow Teaming: Open-Ended Generation of Diverse Adversarial Promptscited by 189
  3. 2023Motif: Intrinsic Motivation from Artificial Intelligence Feedbackcited by 99
  4. 2023LLMatic: Neural Architecture Search via Large Language Models and Quality Diversity Optimizationcited by 86
  5. 2021Differentiable Quality Diversitycited by 71
  6. 2023Connecting the Dots in Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence: From AI Principles, Ethics, and Key Requirements to Responsible AI Systems and Regulationcited by 60
  7. 2022Winner Takes It All: Training Performant RL Populations for Combinatorial Optimizationcited by 57
  8. 2022Diversify and Disambiguate: Learning From Underspecified Datacited by 55
  9. 2022Discovering Evolution Strategies via Meta-Black-Box Optimizationcited by 44
  10. 2022Discovering Policies with DOMiNO: Diversity Optimization Maintaining Near Optimalitycited by 35
  11. 2023Discovering Attention-Based Genetic Algorithms via Meta-Black-Box Optimizationcited by 33
  12. 2021Unsupervised Behaviour Discovery with Quality-Diversity Optimisationcited by 30
38 more
  1. 2023pyribs: A Bare-Bones Python Library for Quality Diversity Optimizationcited by 29
  2. 2022Covariance Matrix Adaptation MAP-Annealingcited by 24
  3. 2024GAVEL: Generating Games Via Evolution and Language Modelscited by 24
  4. 2022Neuroevolution is a Competitive Alternative to Reinforcement Learning for Skill Discoverycited by 23
  5. 2021Policy Manifold Search: Exploring the Manifold Hypothesis for Diversity-based Neuroevolutioncited by 20
  6. 2021Dynamics-Aware Quality-Diversity for Efficient Learning of Skill Repertoirescited by 20
  7. 2022Combining Evolution and Deep Reinforcement Learning for Policy Search: a Surveycited by 20
  8. 2025Assessing Adaptive World Models in Machines with Novel Gamescited by 20
  9. 2022Multi-Objective Quality Diversity Optimizationcited by 18
  10. 2023Ensemble Reinforcement Learning: A Surveycited by 16
  11. 2023Robust multi-agent coordination via evolutionary generation of auxiliary adversarial attackerscited by 15
  12. 2023Diversifying AI: Towards Creative Chess with AlphaZerocited by 15
  13. 2022Accelerated Quality-Diversity through Massive Parallelismcited by 14
  14. 2021Sparse Reward Exploration via Novelty Search and Emitterscited by 13
  15. 2024Quality-Diversity Actor-Critic: Learning High-Performing and Diverse Behaviors via Value and Successor Features Criticscited by 13
  16. 2022Heterogeneous Multi-agent Zero-Shot Coordination by Coevolutioncited by 12
  17. 2022SafeAPT: Safe Simulation-to-Real Robot Learning using Diverse Policies Learned in Simulationcited by 10
  18. 2022COIL: Constrained Optimization in Learned Latent Space: Learning Representations for Valid Solutionscited by 10
  19. 2022Benchmarking Quality-Diversity Algorithms on Neuroevolution for Reinforcement Learningcited by 10
  20. 2023The Quality-Diversity Transformer: Generating Behavior-Conditioned Trajectories with Decision Transformerscited by 10
  21. 2025RainbowPlus: Enhancing Adversarial Prompt Generation via Evolutionary Quality-Diversity Searchcited by 10
  22. 2022Automatic Acquisition of a Repertoire of Diverse Grasping Trajectories through Behavior Shaping and Novelty Searchcited by 9
  23. 2021Problem-solving benefits of down-sampled lexicase selectioncited by 8
  24. 2021Few-shot Quality-Diversity Optimizationcited by 8
  25. 2022Relevance-guided Unsupervised Discovery of Abilities with Quality-Diversity Algorithmscited by 8
  26. 2025Quality-Diversity Red-Teaming: Automated Generation of High-Quality and Diverse Attackers for Large Language Modelscited by 8
  27. 2021BR-NS: an Archive-less Approach to Novelty Searchcited by 7
  28. 2022Learning to Walk Autonomously via Reset-Free Quality-Diversitycited by 7
  29. 2022Online Damage Recovery for Physical Robots with Hierarchical Quality-Diversitycited by 7
  30. 2024Large Language Models as In-context AI Generators for Quality-Diversitycited by 7
  31. 2025Dominated Novelty Search: Rethinking Local Competition in Quality-Diversitycited by 7
  32. 2023Communication-Robust Multi-Agent Learning by Adaptable Auxiliary Multi-Agent Adversary Generationcited by 6
  33. 2023Quality Diversity under Sparse Reward and Sparse Interaction: Application to Grasping in Roboticscited by 6
  34. 2023ACES: Generating Diverse Programming Puzzles with with Autotelic Generative Modelscited by 6
  35. 2023Synergizing Quality-Diversity with Descriptor-Conditioned Reinforcement Learningcited by 6
  36. 2026Self-Evolving Agents with Anytime-Valid Certificatescited by 6
  37. 2021Discovering and Exploiting Sparse Rewards in a Learned Behavior Spacecited by 5
  38. 2022Hierarchical Quality-Diversity for Online Damage Recoverycited by 5

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