A Competitive Strategy for Walking in Generalized Streets for a Simple Robot

In this study, we consider the problem of walking in an unknown generalized street or G-street, for a simple robot. The basic robot is equipped with a sensor that only detect the discontinuities in depth information (gaps). In the former recent researches some competitive strategies for walking the robot in street polygons have been presented. In this research we have empowered the robot by adding a compass to patrol a more general class of polygons. We present an online strategy that generates a search path for the empowered robot in G-streets; a more general class of polygons that contains all streets properly. The empowered robot, using the local information gathered through its sensors and using some pebbles as marker, locates target t, starting from a vertex s in a G-street. Length of the traveled path by the robot is at most 9.06 times longer than the shortest path. The competitive ratio is optimal.