Bounomodes: the grazing ox algorithm for exploration of clustered anomalies

Fuente: arXiv
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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Matloob, Samuel, Dutta, Ayan, Kreidl, O. Patrick, Roy, Swapnonel, Bölöni, Ladislau
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Matloob, Samuel
Dutta, Ayan
Kreidl, O. Patrick
Roy, Swapnonel
Bölöni, Ladislau
author_facet Matloob, Samuel
Dutta, Ayan
Kreidl, O. Patrick
Roy, Swapnonel
Bölöni, Ladislau
contents A common class of algorithms for informative path planning (IPP) follows boustrophedon ("as the ox turns") patterns, which aim to achieve uniform area coverage. However, IPP is often applied in scenarios where anomalies, such as plant diseases, pollution, or hurricane damage, appear in clusters. In such cases, prioritizing the exploration of anomalous regions over uniform coverage is beneficial. This work introduces a class of algorithms referred to as bounomōdes ("as the ox grazes"), which alternates between uniform boustrophedon sampling and targeted exploration of detected anomaly clusters. While uniform sampling can be designed using geometric principles, close exploration of clusters depends on the spatial distribution of anomalies and must be learned. In our implementation, the close exploration behavior is learned using deep reinforcement learning algorithms. Experimental evaluations demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms several established baselines.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_06960
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Bounomodes: the grazing ox algorithm for exploration of clustered anomalies
Matloob, Samuel
Dutta, Ayan
Kreidl, O. Patrick
Roy, Swapnonel
Bölöni, Ladislau
Robotics
A common class of algorithms for informative path planning (IPP) follows boustrophedon ("as the ox turns") patterns, which aim to achieve uniform area coverage. However, IPP is often applied in scenarios where anomalies, such as plant diseases, pollution, or hurricane damage, appear in clusters. In such cases, prioritizing the exploration of anomalous regions over uniform coverage is beneficial. This work introduces a class of algorithms referred to as bounomōdes ("as the ox grazes"), which alternates between uniform boustrophedon sampling and targeted exploration of detected anomaly clusters. While uniform sampling can be designed using geometric principles, close exploration of clusters depends on the spatial distribution of anomalies and must be learned. In our implementation, the close exploration behavior is learned using deep reinforcement learning algorithms. Experimental evaluations demonstrate that the proposed approach outperforms several established baselines.
title Bounomodes: the grazing ox algorithm for exploration of clustered anomalies
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.06960