A genetic algorithm applied to planning search paths in complicated environments

Anti-submarine warfare (ASW) has been a major mission of the US Navy since the days of World War II. Search Theory, which originated from the need to design and evaluate ASW search plans, has been the subject of active research ever since, and ASW remains one of its primary applications. Search Theory provides guidance for allocating search effort, but there has been very little progress in translating that guidance into optimal search paths. This paper describes an implementation of a genetic algorithm for optimizing sonar searches (actual ships' paths) in real acoustic environments. The software has been used to plan ASW searches in multiple fleet exercises.