The Applications of Markov Chains to Estimating Expected Casualties of Naval Mine-sweeping

In naval mine-sweeping,two forms of the progressive sequence mine-sweeping technique can be adopted: from the one side of the channel to the other and from the center of the channel outward.The theory of Markov chains was fruitfully applied to estimating the expected mine-sweeper casualties of the two forms of the progressive sequence sweeping technique.The Markov chains' analysis results show that the expected casualty of the former form is the same as one of the latter form at unknown or infinite mine-field boundary,the expected casualty of the former form is less than one of the latter form at known or finite mine-field boundary.The results can be applied to select a better progressive sequence mine-sweeping technique.