We consider an extension of the optimal searcher path problem (OSP), where a searcher moving through a discretised environment may now need to spend a nonuniform amount of time travelling from one region to another before being able to search it for the presence of a moving target. In constraining not only where but when the search of each cell can take place, the problem more appropriately models the search of environments which cannot be easily partitioned into equally-sized cells. An existing OSP bounding method in literature, the MEAN bound, is generalised to provide bounds for solving the new problem in a branch and bound framework. The main contribution of this paper is an enhancement, Discounted MEAN (DMEAN), which greatly tightens the bound for the new and existing problems alike with almost no additional computation. We test the new algorithm against existing OSP bounding methods and show it leads to faster solution times for moving target search problems.
The main contribution of this paper is an algorithm for autonomous search that minimizes the expected time for detecting multiple targets present in a known built environment. The proposed technique makes use of the probability distribution of the target(s) in the environment, thereby making it feasible to incorporate any additional information, known a-priori or acquired while the search is taking place, into the search strategy. The environment is divided into a set of distinct regions and an adjacency matrix is used to describe the connections between them. The costs of searching any of the regions as well as the cost of travel between them can be arbitrarily specified. The search strategy is derived using a dynamic programming algorithm. The effectiveness of the algorithm is illustrated using an example based on the search of an office environment. An analysis of the computational complexity is also presented.
We consider a search for a target moving within a known indoor environment partitioned into interconnected regions of varying sizes. The knowledge of target location is described as a probability distribution over the regions, and the searcher can only move from one region to another as the structure allows. The objective is to find a feasible path through the regions that maximizes the probability of locating the target within fixed time. This problem generalizes the existing optimal searcher path problem (OSP) by additionally stipulating a minimum amount of time that a finite-speed searcher must spend to travel through a region before reaching the next. We propose a technique to obtain the upper bound of detection for solving the problem in a branch and bound framework. Comparisons show that the technique is also superior to known bounding methods for the original optimal searcher path problem.Index Terms -Optimal searcher path problem, target search, branch and bound.
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