Parabolic spiral search plan for a randomly located target in the plane (Q2448987)

Summary: This paper addresses the problem of searching for a located target in the plane by using one searcher starting its motion from the point \((X_0, Y_0)\). The searcher moves along parabolic spiral curve. The position of the target has a known distribution. We show that the distance between the target position and the searcher starting point depends on the number of revolutions, where the complete revolution is done when \(t=2\pi\). Furthermore, we study this technique in the one-dimensional case (i.e., when the searcher moves with linear search technique). It is desired to get the expected value of the time for detecting the target. Illustrative examples are given to demonstrate the applicability of this technique assuming circular normal distributed estimates of the target position.