Competitive Online Approximation of the Optimal Search Ratio

How efficiently can we search an unknown environment for a goal in unknown position? How much would it help if the environment were known? We answer these questions for simple polygons and for general graphs, by providing online search strategies that are as good as the best offline search algorithms, up to a constant factor. For other settings we prove that no such online algorithms exist.

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2004
• Where: ESA
• Authors: Rudolf Fleischer, Thomas Kamphans, Rolf Klein, Elmar Langetepe, Gerhard Trippen
• Keywords: ESA 2004, Online Search Strategies, Unknown Environment, Unknown Position