Related papers: The topography of the environment alters the optim…
We investigate exploration patterns of a microswimmer, modeled as an active Brownian particle, searching for a target region located in a well of an energy landscape and separated from the initial position of the particle by high barriers.…
Efficient search acts as a strong selective force in biological systems ranging from cellular populations to predator-prey systems. The search processes commonly involve finding a stationary or mobile target within a heterogeneously…
Finding the best strategy to minimize the time needed to find a given target is a crucial task both in nature and in reaching decisive technological advances. By considering learning agents able to switch their dynamics between standard and…
Target search by active agents in rugged energy landscapes has remained a challenge because standard enhanced sampling methods do not apply to irreversible dynamics. We overcome this non-equilibrium rare-event problem by developing an…
Developing behavioral policies designed to efficiently solve target-search problems is a crucial issue both in nature and in the nanotechnology of the 21st century. Here, we characterize the target-search strategies of simple microswimmers…
We study the efficiency of random search processes based on L{\'e}vy flights with power-law distributed jump lengths in the presence of an external drift, for instance, an underwater current, an airflow, or simply the bias of the searcher…
We study the efficiency of search processes based on Levy flights (LFs) with power-law distributed jump lengths in the presence of an external drift. While LFs turn out to be efficient search processes when relative to the starting point…
Efficiency of search for randomly distributed targets is a prominent problem in many branches of the sciences. For the stochastic process of L\'evy walks, a specific range of optimal efficiencies was suggested under variation of search…
We address the problem where a mobile search agent seeks to find an unknown number of stationary objects distributed in a bounded search domain, and the search mission is subject to time/distance constraint. Our work accounts for false…
We theoretically address minimal search strategies of active, self-propelled particles towards hidden targets in three-dimensional space. The particles can sense if a target is close, e.g., by detecting signaling molecules released by a…
Assembling optimal microbial communities is key for various applications in biofuel production, agriculture, and human health. Finding the optimal community is challenging because the number of possible communities grows exponentially with…
A random search is a stochastic process representing the random motion of a particle (denoted as the searcher) that is terminated when it reaches (detects) a target particle or area the first time. In intermittent search the random motion…
Identifying optimal strategies for efficient spatial exploration is crucial, both for animals seeking food and for robotic search processes, where maximizing the covered area is a fundamental requirement. Here, we propose position resetting…
We consider random search processes alternating stochastically between diffusion and ballistic motion, in which the distribution function of ballistic motion directions varies from point to point in space. The specific space dependence of…
We consider a stationary prey in a given region of space and we aim at detecting optimal foraging strategies. On the one hand, when the prey is uniformly distributed, the best possible strategy for the forager is to be stationary and…
Optimal random foraging strategy has gained increasing concentrations. It is shown that L\'evy flight is more efficient compared with the Brownian motion when the targets are sparse. However, standard L\'evy flight generally cannot be…
Contextual policy search allows adapting robotic movement primitives to different situations. For instance, a locomotion primitive might be adapted to different terrain inclinations or desired walking speeds. Such an adaptation is often…
We study a variant of the searching problem where the environment consists of a known terrain and the goal is to obtain visibility of an unknown target point on the surface of the terrain. The searcher starts on the surface of the terrain…
Navigation in complex and noisy environments is a key issue in diverse fields from biology to engineering. Despite extensive progress in numerical optimization methods for computing navigation policies, insights into how disorder reshapes…
We consider active Brownian particles that intermittently switch between active and inactive states. Such behavior is ubiquitous at all scales, from bacteria to animals and in artificial active systems. We derive exact expressions for key…