Search game for a moving target with dynamically generated informations

This paper deals with the tactical planning of the search efforts for a moving target. It refers deeply to the work of Brown-Washburn, related to the multi-step search of a Markovian target. However, this meaningful work is not optimally applicable to tactical situations, where the target may move accordingly to the observations of the possible searcher indiscretions (e.g. active modes). On the one hand, the probabilistic Markovian model is too restrictive for describing such target motion. In this paper, a more suitable modeling of the target move is presented (semi-Markovian model). On the other hand, it is necessary to involve the informational context into the planning. These two paradoxical aspects make the issue uneasy. We introduce a model for handling the context notions into the optimization setting, and apply it to a general search example with multiple modes management.