Exploring an infinite space with finite memory scouts

Lihi Cohen, Yuval Emek, Oren Louidor, Jara Uittox

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

Abstract

Consider a small number of scouts exploring the infinite d-dimensional grid with the aim of hitting a hidden target point. Each scout is controlled by a probabilistic finite automaton that determines its movement (to a neighboring grid point) based on its current state. The scouts, that operate under a fully synchronous schedule, communicate with each other (in a way that affects their respective states) when they share the same grid point and operate independently otherwise. Our main research question is: How many scouts are required to guarantee that the target admits a finite mean hitting time? Recently, it was shown that d+1 is an upper bound on the answer to this question for any dimension d ≥ 1 and the main contribution of this paper comes in the form of proving that this bound is tight for d ∈ {1; 2}.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publication28th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, SODA 2017
EditorsPhilip N. Klein
Pages207-224
Number of pages18
ISBN (Electronic)9781611974782
DOIs
StatePublished - 2017
Event28th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, SODA 2017 - Barcelona, Spain
Duration: 16 Jan 201719 Jan 2017

Publication series

NameProceedings of the Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms
Volume0

Conference

Conference28th Annual ACM-SIAM Symposium on Discrete Algorithms, SODA 2017
Country/TerritorySpain
CityBarcelona
Period16/01/1719/01/17

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Software
  • General Mathematics

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