Discrete search allocation game with energy constraints

This paper deals with a search game. In a search space, a target wants to avoid a searcher by selecting his path. The searcher has superior mobility and makes effort to detect the target by distributing divisible searching effort anywhere he wants. The target might move diffusively from the starting points but his motion is restricted by some constraints on his maximum speed and energy consumption. The searcher also has limits on the total amount of searching effort. A payoff of the game is assumed to be the detection probability of the target, which is represented by an exponential function of the cumulative searching effort weighted by the probability distribution of the target. Regardless of the payoff function, we name the game the search allocation game with energy constraints. We formulate it as a two-person zero-sum game and propose a linear programming method to solve it. Our formulation and method have the flexibility to be applied to other search models by a small modification.