Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Changing L0 into L01.
The result of the operation corresponding to each step, i.e., each current image of
the labyrinth, will be:
The same as the current image in the previous step, if the wave does not pass
through the branch point
Modified current image, with some parts of the maze discarded, if the wave
passes through branch point
Generally speaking, the initiation of a backward wave with the help of the Paint
Bucket operation to determine the portion of the maze not connected with the end
point is not quite correct. However it appears possible to use this operation if the
maze is not very complicated and the time of passing the maze is not very long.
The above procedure is simple and effective in the case of linear treelike mazes
where all possible paths from the entry point to the destination have roughly the
same direction, coinciding with the direction of the wave propagation.
In general, this procedure should be changed because light-initiated phase waves
propagate along a gradient of background intensity, and not along the path in the
maze, which can change its direction.
Changing the proposed procedure enables the use of its basic principles and to
develop a technique suitable even for very complex mazes.
Such a step-by-step technique is based on dividing the maze into linear treelike
fragments and sequentially processing each of them. An elementary step of this
method involves the following operations:
Determining the direction of the path in the maze at the chosen starting point
Excitation of the phase wave at this initial point, which propagates along the
gradient of the background (in this case, the gradient coincides with the direction
of the path in the selected fragment of the maze), and recording sequential steps
of wave propagation
Pruning of possible dead-end branches
Determination of the turning points of the path
The elementary step ends at the turning point of the path in the maze, which is
further used as the next starting point.
5.3.4 Effectiveness of the Method
There are quite stringent conditions of practical realization of the developed
technology to find the shortest path in the maze.
The key distinguishing feature of the Belousov-Zhabotinsky system, based on
the Ru-catalyst, is its high sensitivity to small changes in experimental conditions.
Therefore, the quality of the optical system used to input the initial data should be
