Autonomous search by robots and animals: A survey

This paper is a survey of research on autonomous search strategies which originate in engineering and biology. Our motivation is to identify methods of search in an essentially two-dimensional Euclidean space, which can be applied to the area of demining. Such search strategies are based on spatio-temporal distributions. These distributions may be known in advance, because of prior intelligence or through the use of remote sensing, or they may be the result of on-line gathering of information as the search progresses, or of both. We first review the literature on search and coordination which emanates from the field of robotics, we then summarize significant research in the field of animal search, and also discuss relevant results in robotics which are inspired by animal behavior.