Extended Search Planning for Multiple Moving Targets Incorporating Search Priorities

Abstract

This article deals with a one-searcher multi-target search problem where targets with different detection priorities move in Markov processes in each discrete time interval over a given space search area, and the total number of search time intervals is fixed. A limited search resource is available in each search time interval and an exponential detection function is assumed. The searcher can obtain a target detection reward, if the target is detected, which represents the detection priority of target and does not increase with respect to time. The objective is to establish the optimal search plan that allocates the search resource effort over the search areas in each time interval in order to maximize the total detection reward. The analysis shows that the given problem can be decomposed into interval-wise individual search problems, each being treated as a single stationary target problem for each time interval. Thus, an iterative procedure is derived to solve a sequence of stationary target problems. The computational results show that the proposed algorithm guarantees optimality.