Search@Home: A Commercial Off-the-Shelf Environment for Investigating Optimization Problems

TL;DR

Search@Home is a versatile environment using off-the-shelf devices to facilitate real-world testing and development of optimization strategies, bridging the gap between simulation and actual deployment conditions.

Contribution

The paper introduces Search@Home, a novel environment that enables rapid prototyping and testing of optimization heuristics in real-world settings using commercial off-the-shelf devices.

Findings

Enables testing of heuristics in real-world conditions

Facilitates rapid prototyping of optimization strategies

Bridges the gap between simulation and real-world deployment

Abstract

Search heuristics, particularly those that are evaluation-driven (e.g., evolutionary computation), are often performed in simulation, enabling exploration of large solution spaces. Yet simulation may not truly replicate real-world conditions. However, search heuristics have been proven to be successful when executed in real-world constrained environments that limit searching ability even with broad solution spaces. Moreover, searching in situ provides the added benefit of exposing the search heuristic to the exact conditions and uncertainties that the deployed application will face. Software engineering problems can benefit from in situ search via instantiation and analysis in real-world environments. This paper introduces Search@Home, an environment comprising heterogeneous commercial off-the-shelf devices enabling rapid prototyping of optimization strategies for real-world problems.