A combinatorial search problem can be defined as follows: Given a set W={w 1, w2,..., wm} of m words over a (binary) alphabet Σ, design a sequence of tests that successfully find the word w* ∈ W being sought. The prime goal of the optimal search is to find the sought word w* with the smallest maximum or average search time. Here, we deal with a randomly selected set W of m binary words of fixed length n, that is, the set W={w1,... wm} is chosen with equal probability among all possible subsets of size m.
Published in:
Information Theory, 2002. Proceedings. 2002 IEEE International Symposium on
Date of Conference: 2002