Interpretable Markov-Based Spatiotemporal Risk Surfaces for Missing-Child Search Planning with Reinforcement Learning and LLM-Based Quality Assurance

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Hauptverfasser: Castillo, Joshua, Mukkamala, Ravi
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2026
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author Castillo, Joshua
Mukkamala, Ravi
author_facet Castillo, Joshua
Mukkamala, Ravi
contents The first 72 hours of a missing-child investigation are critical for successful recovery. However, law enforcement agencies often face fragmented, unstructured data and a lack of dynamic, geospatial predictive tools. Our system, Guardian, provides an end-to-end decision-support system for missing-child investigation and early search planning. It converts heterogeneous, unstructured case documents into a schema-aligned spatiotemporal representation, enriches cases with geocoding and transportation context, and provides probabilistic search products spanning 0-72 hours. In this paper, we present an overview of Guardian as well as a detailed description of a three-layer predictive component of the system. The first layer is a Markov chain, a sparse, interpretable model with transitions incorporating road accessibility costs, seclusion preferences, and corridor bias with separate day/night parameterizations. The Markov chain's output prediction distributions are then transformed into operationally useful search plans by the second layer's reinforcement learning. Finally, the third layer's LLM performs post hoc validation of layer 2 search plans prior to their release. Using a synthetic but realistic case study, we report quantitative outputs across 24/48/72-hour horizons and analyze sensitivity, failure modes, and tradeoffs. Results show that the proposed predictive system with the three-layer architecture produces interpretable priors for zone optimization and human review.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_08933
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Interpretable Markov-Based Spatiotemporal Risk Surfaces for Missing-Child Search Planning with Reinforcement Learning and LLM-Based Quality Assurance
Castillo, Joshua
Mukkamala, Ravi
Artificial Intelligence
Information Retrieval
Machine Learning
The first 72 hours of a missing-child investigation are critical for successful recovery. However, law enforcement agencies often face fragmented, unstructured data and a lack of dynamic, geospatial predictive tools. Our system, Guardian, provides an end-to-end decision-support system for missing-child investigation and early search planning. It converts heterogeneous, unstructured case documents into a schema-aligned spatiotemporal representation, enriches cases with geocoding and transportation context, and provides probabilistic search products spanning 0-72 hours. In this paper, we present an overview of Guardian as well as a detailed description of a three-layer predictive component of the system. The first layer is a Markov chain, a sparse, interpretable model with transitions incorporating road accessibility costs, seclusion preferences, and corridor bias with separate day/night parameterizations. The Markov chain's output prediction distributions are then transformed into operationally useful search plans by the second layer's reinforcement learning. Finally, the third layer's LLM performs post hoc validation of layer 2 search plans prior to their release. Using a synthetic but realistic case study, we report quantitative outputs across 24/48/72-hour horizons and analyze sensitivity, failure modes, and tradeoffs. Results show that the proposed predictive system with the three-layer architecture produces interpretable priors for zone optimization and human review.
title Interpretable Markov-Based Spatiotemporal Risk Surfaces for Missing-Child Search Planning with Reinforcement Learning and LLM-Based Quality Assurance
topic Artificial Intelligence
Information Retrieval
Machine Learning
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.08933