Stochastic Search and Graph Techniques for MCM Path Planning

We have been developing path planning techniques to look for paths that balance the utility and risk associated with different routes through a minefield. Such methods will allow a battlegroup commander to evaluate alternative route options while searching for low risk paths. A risk management framework can be used to describe the relative values of different factors such as risk versus time to objective, giving the commander the capability to balance path safety against other mission objectives. We will describe our recent investigations of two related path planning problems in this framework. We have developed a stochastic search technique to identify low risk paths that satisfy a constraint on the transit time. The objective is to generate low risk paths quickly so that the user can interactively explore the time-risk tradeoff. We will compare this with the related problem of finding the fastest bounded-risk path, and the potential use of dynamic graph algorithms to quickly find new paths as the risk bound is varied.