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Mathematical physics

Search research

Nature volume 443, pages 281–282 (2006)Cite this article

How does one best search for non-replenishable targets at unknown positions? An optimized search strategy could be applied to situations as diverse as animal foraging and time-sensitive rescue missions.

Operations research — the field that uses mathematical methods to optimize complex real-world structures and processes — grew out of the analysis of military problems during the Second World War. One such question was the optimization problem 'How to hunt a submarine'1, the analysis of which had to take several factors into account. For instance, a figure-of-eight search pattern of an aircraft scouring littoral waters would be different from the pattern for a search of deep-ocean waters. The problem was also complicated by the fact that a negative search might mean only that a submarine was submerged, not that it was absent.

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Figure 1: Gotcha! An albatross completes a search for an non-replenishable target.

References

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  1. Office of Naval Research, 875 North Randolph Street, Arlington, 22203, Virginia, USA

    Michael F. Shlesinger

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  1. Michael F. Shlesinger
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Shlesinger, M. Search research. Nature 443, 281–282 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/443281a

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