Simple algorithms for searching a polygon with flashlights

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Abstract

The k-searcher is a mobile guard whose visibility is limited to k rays emanating from her position, where the direction of each ray can be changed continuously with bounded angular rotation speed. Given a polygonal region P, is it possible for the k-searcher to eventually see a mobile intruder that is arbitrarily faster than the searcher within P? We present O(n2)-time algorithms for constructing a search schedule of the 1-searcher and the 2-searcher, respectively. Our framework for the 1-searcher can be viewed as a modification of that of LaValle et al. [Proc. 16th ACM Symp. on Computational Geometry, 2000, pp. 260–269] and is naturally extended for the 2-searcher.

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Supported by KOSEF (Korea Science and Engineering Foundation) under grant 98-0102-07-01-3.

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This work was done while the author was affiliated with Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, Saarbrücken, Germany.

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