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Search Games: A Review

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Search Theory

Abstract

This review presents an update on the area of Search Games, highlighting recent developments in the field, as well as presenting some new problems for further research. The search space is either a graph, a bounded domain, a mixture of the above, or an unbounded set. The search process is presented as a two-player zero-sum game between the searcher and the hider. The searcher moves along a continuous trajectory and the cost function is the time needed to find the hider. Our review emphasises general results concerning minimax search trajectories and optimal search strategies.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the Lorentz Center, the organizing committee of the workshop on Search and Rendezvous, and especially Robbert Fokkink and Steve Alpern for their help and support. The author is also obliged to Robbert Fokkink for his useful remarks which led to a significantly improved version.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Statistics, University of Haifa, 31905, Haifa, Israel

    Shmuel Gal

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  1. Shmuel Gal
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Correspondence to Shmuel Gal .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Warwick, Warwick Business School, Scarman Road, Coventry, CV4 7AL, United Kingdom

    Steve Alpern

  2. , Institute of Applied Mathematics, Technical University Delft, Mekelweg, Delft, 2628 CD, Netherlands

    Robbert Fokkink

  3. , Complexity Theory and Algorithmics Group, University of Liverpool, Ashton Building, Ashton Street, Liverpool, L69 3BX, United Kingdom

    Leszek Gąsieniec

  4. , Section Military Operations Research, Netherlands Defense Academy, Kraanstraat 4, Breda, 4811 MA, Netherlands

    Roy Lindelauf

  5. , Computer Science Department, University of Maryland, AV Williams Building, College Park, 20854, Maryland, USA

    V.S. Subrahmanian

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Gal, S. (2013). Search Games: A Review. In: Alpern, S., Fokkink, R., Gąsieniec, L., Lindelauf, R., Subrahmanian, V. (eds) Search Theory. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6825-7_1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-6825-7_1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY

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