A parsimonious parameterization scheme is proposed to model the sparse Volt
erra filter so that the number of Volterra kernels to be estimated is great
ly reduced. Representing the Volterra filter using a linear vector equation
, the genetic algorithm is applied to search the significant terms among al
l possible candidate vectors, As the significant terms are detected, the as
sociated Volterra kernels are estimated using the least square error method
, The problem to be solved is, in essence, the application of the genetic a
lgorithm to combinatorial optimization. An operator called forced mutation
is proposed along with the genetic algorithm to overcome the difficulties u
sually encountered when applying the genetic algorithm to combinatorial opt
imization.