ABSTRACT
Search theory* came into being during World War II with the work of B. 0. Koopman and his colleagues in the Antisubmarine Warfare Operations Research Group (ASWORG). ASWORG was directed by P. M. Morse and reported to Admiral Ernest King, Chief of Naval Operations and Commander in Chief, US Fleet. Inspired by Morse, many of the fundamental concepts of search theory, such as sweep width and sweep rate, had been established by the spring of 1942. Work in search theory can be classified, at least in part, according to the assumptions made about measures of effectiveness, target motion, and the way in which search effort is characterized. This chapter is organized according to these criteria. Assumptions about target motion have a considerable influence on the characteristics of search plans and the difficulty of computation. Search effort may be either discrete or continuous.
