Online Search with Maximum Clearance

Abstract We study the setting in which a mobile searcher must locate a hidden target in a bounded or unbounded search domain, with no information about the hider's position. In particular, we consider online search, in which the performance of the search strategy is evaluated by its worst case competitive ratio. We introduce a multi-criteria search problem in which the searcher has a budget on its allotted search time, and the objective is to design strategies that are competitively efficient, respect the budget, and maximize the total searched ground. We give analytically optimal strategies for the line and the star domains, and efficient heuristics for general networks.