Effects of cueing in cooperative search

We consider the effects of cueing in a cooperative search mission that involves several autonomous agents. Two scenarios are discussed: one in which the search is conducted by a number of identical search-and-engage vehicles and one where these vehicles are assisted by a search-only (reconnaissance) asset. The cooperation between the autonomous agents is facilitated via cueing, i.e., the information transmitted to the agents by a searcher that has just detected a target. The effect of cueing on the target detection probability is derived from first principles using a Markov chain analysis. In particular, it is demonstrated that the benefit of cueing on the system's effectiveness is bounded.