Search@Home: A Commercial Off-the-Shelf Environment for Investigating\n Optimization Problems

Search heuristics, particularly those that are evaluation-driven (e.g.,\nevolutionary computation), are often performed in simulation, enabling\nexploration of large solution spaces. Yet simulation may not truly replicate\nreal-world conditions. However, search heuristics have been proven to be\nsuccessful when executed in real-world constrained environments that limit\nsearching ability even with broad solution spaces. Moreover, searching in situ\nprovides the added benefit of exposing the search heuristic to the exact\nconditions and uncertainties that the deployed application will face. Software\nengineering problems can benefit from in situ search via instantiation and\nanalysis in real-world environments. This paper introduces Search@Home, an\nenvironment comprising heterogeneous commercial off-the-shelf devices enabling\nrapid prototyping of optimization strategies for real-world problems.\n