Searching with Advice: Robot Fence-Jumping

TL;DR

This paper investigates an optimal search strategy for a robot locating a treasure outside an unknown fence, introducing a new problem with complex optimization and proposing both exact and heuristic algorithms.

Contribution

It formulates a novel search problem involving fences and chord-jumps, providing optimal solutions for 1-Jump and a heuristic for general k-Jumps.

Findings

Optimal 1-Jump trajectory fully characterized.

Heuristic k-Jump algorithm effectively approximates optimal solutions.

Analysis shows trade-offs between memory, computation, and search efficiency.

Abstract

We study a new search problem on the plane involving a robot and an immobile treasure, initially placed at distance $1$ from each other. The length $\beta$ of an arc (a fence) within the perimeter of the corresponding circle, as well as the promise that the treasure is outside the fence, is given as part of the input. The goal is to device movement trajectories so that the robot locates the treasure in minimum time. Notably, although the presence of the fence limits searching uncertainty, the location of the fence is unknown, and in the worst case analysis is determined adversarially. Nevertheless, the robot has the ability to move in the interior of the circle. In particular the robot can attempt a number of chord-jump moves if it happens to be within the fence or if an endpoint of the fence is discovered. The optimal solution to our question can be obtained as a solution to a complicated optimization problem, which involves trigonometric functions, and trigonometric equations that do not admit closed form solutions. For the 1-Jump Algorithm, we fully describe the optimal trajectory, and provide an analysis of the associated cost as a function of $\beta$. Our analysis indicates that the optimal k-Jump Algorithm requires that the robot has enough memory and computation power to compute the optimal chord-jumps. Motivated by this, we give an abstract performance analysis for every k-Jump Algorithm. Subsequently, we present a highly efficient Halving Heuristic k-Jump Algorithm that can effectively approximate the optimal k-Jump Algorithm, with very limited memory and computation requirements.