I'm trying to devise an algorithm for a robot trying to find the flag(positioned at unknown location), which is located in a world containing obstacles. Robot's mission is to capture the flag and bring it to his home base(which represents his starting position). Robot, at each step, sees only a limited neighbourhood (he does not know how the world looks in advance), but he has an unlimited memory to store already visited cells.
I'm looking for any suggestions about how to do this in an efficient manner. Especially the first part; namely getting to the flag.
A simple Breadth First Search/Depth First Search will work, albeit slowly. Be sure to prevent the bot from checking paths that have the same square multiple times, as this will cause these algorithms to run much longer in standard cases, and indefinitely in the case of the flag being unable to be reached.
A* is the more elegant approach, especially if you know the location of the flag relative to yourself. Wikipedia, as per usual, does a decent job with explaining it. The classic heuristic to use is the manning distance (number of moves assuming no obstacles) to the destination.
These algorithms are useful for the return trip - not so much the "finding the flag" part.
Edit: These approaches involve creating objects that represents squares on your map, and creating "paths" or series of square to hit (or steps to take). Once you build a framework for representing your square, the problem of what kind of search to use becomes a much less daunting task.
This class will need to be able to get a list of adjacent squares and know if it is traversable.
Considering that you don't have all information, try just treating unexplored tiles as traversable, and recomputing if you find they aren't.
Edit: As for seaching an unknown area for an unknown object...
You can use something like Pledge's algorithm until you've found the boundaries of your space, recording all information as you go. Then go have a look at all unseen squares using your favorite drift/pathfinding algorithm. If, at any point long the way, you see the flag, stop what you're doing and use your favorite pathfinding algorithm to go home.
Part of it will be pathfinding, for example with the A* algorithm.
Part of it will be exploring. Any cell with an unknown neighbour is worth exploring. The best cells to explore are those closest to the robot and with the largest unexplored neighbourhood.
If the robot sees through walls some exploration candidates might be inaccessible and exploration might be required even if the flag is already visible.
It may be worthwhile to reevaluate the current target every time a new cell is revealed. As long as this is only done when new cells are revealed, progress will always be made.
With a simple DFS search at least you will find the flag:)
Well, there are two parts to this. 1) Searching for the Flag 2) Returning Home
For the searching part, I would circle the home point moving outward every time I made a complete loop. This way, you can search every square and idtentify if it is a clear spot, an obstacle, map boundary or the flag. This way, you can create a map of your environment.
Once the Flag is found, you could either go back the same way, or find a more direct route. If it is more direct route, then you would have to use the map which you have created to find a direct route.
What you want is to find all minimal-spanning-tree in the viewport of the robot and then let the robot game which mst he wants to travel.
If you met an obstacle, you can go around to determine its precise dimensions, and after measuring it return to the previous course. With no obstacles in the range of sight you can try to just head in the direction of the nearest unchecked area.
It maybe doesn't seem the fastest way but, I think, it is the good point to start.
I think the approach would be to construct the graph as the robot travels. There will be a function that will return to the robot the particular state of a grid. This is needed since the robot will not know in advance the state of the grid.
You can apply heuristics in the search so the probability of reaching the flag is increased.
As many have mentioned, A* is good for global planning if you know where you are and where your goal is. But if you don't have this global knowledge, there is a class of algorithms call "bug" algorithms that you should look into.
As for exploration, if you want to find the flag the fastest, depending on how much of the local neighborhood your bot can see, you should try to not have this neighborhood overlap. For example if your bot can see one cell around it in every direction, you should explore every third column. (columns 1, 4, 7, etc.). But if the bot can only see the cell it is currently occupying, then the most optimal thing you can do is to not go back over what you already visited.
来源：https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5361791/robot-exploration-algorithm