from an exhaustive search technique to the genetic algorithm technique described

throughout this chapter.

 Exhaustive Search Technique versus Genetic Algorithm Technique

 The focus of this section is to present the results from two different techniques and

observe the differences in the final solutions and the overall processing times. The

exhaustive search technique calculates the shadow area for every possible two-robot

configuration and keeps track of the current "best" solution. For the two-robot case, this

method is computationally intensive and takes hours to arrive at a final solution.

Therefore, the results compared will only be for the two-robot case.

 Three 64x64 resolution maps will be compared and the results will be displayed

graphically as in previous sections in addition to similar plots of the convergence rates for

each technique. All of the maps have been presented in previous sections. The data in

the convergence plots contain the current best solution for both techniques.

Comparison #1

 The first map is the most simplistic of the three maps that will be compared. Both

methods arrive at a similar solution for the shadow area with slightly different robot

positions. The main difference that should be noted is the overall processing time

required to arrive at the solution.

 For this particular example, the exhaustive search technique takes approximately four

hours to complete while the genetic algorithm technique finds a solution in seven

seconds. The exhaustive search would have found multiple solutions that have a shadow

area of 14, but the first one found was reported as the best solution. The results from the

two methods are shown in figure 5.27. Data plotted are the best of each run and are not

the entire data set.