Probabilistic physical search on general graphs: Approximations and heuristics

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

We consider an agent seeking to obtain an item, potentially available at different locations in a physical environment. The traveling costs between locations are known in advance, but there is only probabilistic knowledge regarding the possible prices of the item at any given location. Given such a setting, the problem is to find a plan that maximizes the probability of acquiring the good while minimizing both travel and purchase costs. Sample applications include agents in search-and-rescue or exploration missions, e.g., a rover on Mars seeking to mine a specific mineral. These probabilistic physical search problems have been previously studied, but we present the first approximation and heuristic algorithms for solving such problems on general graphs. We establish an interesting connection between these problems and classical graph-search problems, which led us to provide the approximation algorithms and hardness of approximation results for our settings. We further suggest several heuristics for practical use, and demonstrate their effectiveness with simulation on a real graph structure.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2020
EditorsBo An, Amal El Fallah Seghrouchni, Gita Sukthankar
Pages2143-2145
Number of pages3
ISBN (Electronic)9781450375184
DOIs
StatePublished - 2020
Event19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2020 - Virtual, Auckland , New Zealand
Duration: 9 May 202013 May 2020

Publication series

NameProceedings of the International Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS
Volume2020-May
ISSN (Print)1548-8403
ISSN (Electronic)1558-2914

Conference

Conference19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems, AAMAS 2020
Country/TerritoryNew Zealand
CityVirtual, Auckland
Period9/05/2013/05/20

Keywords

  • Graph search
  • Planning under uncertainty

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