$\rm{A}^{\rm{SAR}}$: $\varepsilon$-Optimal Graph Search for Minimum Expected-Detection-Time Paths with Path Budget Constraints for Search and Rescue (SAR)

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Mugford, Eric, Gammell, Jonathan D.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2025
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author Mugford, Eric
Gammell, Jonathan D.
author_facet Mugford, Eric
Gammell, Jonathan D.
contents Searches are conducted to find missing persons and/or objects given uncertain information, imperfect observers and large search areas in Search and Rescue (SAR). In many scenarios, such as Maritime SAR, expected survival times are short and optimal search could increase the likelihood of success. This optimization problem is complex for nontrivial problems given its probabilistic nature. Stochastic optimization methods search large problems by nondeterministically sampling the space to reduce the effective size of the problem. This has been used in SAR planning to search otherwise intractably large problems but the stochastic nature provides no formal guarantees on the quality of solutions found in finite time. This paper instead presents $\rm{A}^{\rm{SAR}}$, an $\varepsilon$-optimal search algorithm for SAR planning. It calculates a heuristic to bound the search space and uses graph-search methods to find solutions that are formally guaranteed to be within a user-specified factor, $\varepsilon$, of the optimal solution. It finds better solutions faster than existing optimization approaches in operational simulations. It is also demonstrated with a real-world field trial on Lake Ontario, Canada, where it was used to locate a drifting manikin in only 150s.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2511_10792
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle $\rm{A}^{\rm{SAR}}$: $\varepsilon$-Optimal Graph Search for Minimum Expected-Detection-Time Paths with Path Budget Constraints for Search and Rescue (SAR)
Mugford, Eric
Gammell, Jonathan D.
Robotics
Searches are conducted to find missing persons and/or objects given uncertain information, imperfect observers and large search areas in Search and Rescue (SAR). In many scenarios, such as Maritime SAR, expected survival times are short and optimal search could increase the likelihood of success. This optimization problem is complex for nontrivial problems given its probabilistic nature. Stochastic optimization methods search large problems by nondeterministically sampling the space to reduce the effective size of the problem. This has been used in SAR planning to search otherwise intractably large problems but the stochastic nature provides no formal guarantees on the quality of solutions found in finite time. This paper instead presents $\rm{A}^{\rm{SAR}}$, an $\varepsilon$-optimal search algorithm for SAR planning. It calculates a heuristic to bound the search space and uses graph-search methods to find solutions that are formally guaranteed to be within a user-specified factor, $\varepsilon$, of the optimal solution. It finds better solutions faster than existing optimization approaches in operational simulations. It is also demonstrated with a real-world field trial on Lake Ontario, Canada, where it was used to locate a drifting manikin in only 150s.
title $\rm{A}^{\rm{SAR}}$: $\varepsilon$-Optimal Graph Search for Minimum Expected-Detection-Time Paths with Path Budget Constraints for Search and Rescue (SAR)
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.10792