Bounding an Optimal Search Path with a Game of Cop and Robber on Graphs

摘要

In search theory, the goal of the Optimal Search Path (OSP) problem is to find a finite length path maximizing the probability that a searcher detects a lost wanderer on a graph. We propose to bound the probability of finding the wanderer in the remaining search time by relaxing the problem into a stochastic game of cop and robber from graph theory. We discuss the validity of this bound and demonstrate its effectiveness on a constraint programming model of the problem. Experimental results show how our novel bound compares favorably to the DMEAN bound from the literature, a state-of-the-art bound based on a relaxation of the OSP into a longest path problem.