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Mychapter 3 A

The document discusses informed search algorithms including best-first search, A* search, heuristics, local search algorithms like hill-climbing and simulated annealing, and local beam search. It provides details on A* search including admissible and consistent heuristics, properties of A* search like completeness and optimality, and examples applying A* to problems like the 8-puzzle and missionaries and cannibals puzzle.

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Ramesh Kumar Yadav
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26 views

Mychapter 3 A

The document discusses informed search algorithms including best-first search, A* search, heuristics, local search algorithms like hill-climbing and simulated annealing, and local beam search. It provides details on A* search including admissible and consistent heuristics, properties of A* search like completeness and optimality, and examples applying A* to problems like the 8-puzzle and missionaries and cannibals puzzle.

Uploaded by

Ramesh Kumar Yadav
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Informed search algorithms

CHAPTER 4
Oliver Schulte
Summer 2011
Outline

Best-first search
A* search
Heuristics
Local search algorithms
Hill-climbing search
Simulated annealing search
Local beam search
Environment Type Discussed In this Lecture
3

Fully
Observable Static Environment
yes

Deterministic

yes

Sequential
yes no

Discrete no
yes Discrete
no
yes
Planning, Control, Vector Search: Continuous Function
heuristic cybernetics Constraint Optimization
search Satisfaction
CMPT 310 - Blind Search
Review: Tree search

A search strategy is defined by picking the order of


node expansion
Which nodes to check first?
Knowledge and Heuristics

Simon and Newell, Human Problem Solving, 1972.


Thinking out loud: experts have strong opinions like
“this looks promising”, “no way this is going to
work”.
S&N: intelligence comes from heuristics that help
find promising states fast.
Best-first search

 Idea: use an evaluation function f(n) for each node


 estimate of "desirability"
 Expand most desirable unexpanded node

 Implementation:
Order the nodes in frontier in decreasing order of
desirability
 Special cases:
 greedy best-first search
 A* search



Romania with step costs in km
Greedy best-first search

Evaluation function
 f(n) = h(n) (heuristic)
 = estimate of cost from n to goal

e.g., hSLD(n) = straight-line distance from n to


Bucharest
Greedy best-first search expands the node that
appears to be closest to goal

Greedy best-first search example
Greedy best-first search example
Greedy best-first search example
Greedy best-first search example

http://aispace.org/search/
Properties of greedy best-first search

Complete? No – can get stuck in loops,


 e.g. as Oradea as goal
 Iasi  Neamt  Iasi  Neamt 
Time? O(bm), but a good heuristic can give dramatic
improvement
Space? O(bm) -- keeps all nodes in memory
Optimal? No

A* search

Idea: avoid expanding paths that are already


expensive.
Very important!

Evaluation function f(n) = g(n) + h(n)


h(n) = estimated cost from n to goal
f(n) = estimated total cost of path through n
to goal
g(n) = cost so far to reach n
A* search example
A* search example
A* search example
A* search example
A* search example
A* search example

http://aispace.org/search/

• We stop when the node with the lowest f-value


is a goal state.
• Is this guaranteed to find the shortest path?
Admissible heuristics

A heuristic h(n) is admissible if for every node n,


h(n) ≤ h*(n), where h*(n) is the true cost to reach the
goal state from n.
An admissible heuristic never overestimates the cost
to reach the goal, i.e., it is optimistic.

Example: h (n) (never overestimates the actual


SLD
road distance)
Negative Example: Fly heuristic: if wall is dark, then
distance from exit is large.
Theorem: If h(n) is admissible, A* using TREE-
SEARCH is optimal

Optimality of A* (proof)

 Suppose some suboptimal goal path G has been generated and is in the
2
frontier. Let n be an unexpanded node in the frontier such that n is on a
shortest path to an optimal goal G.

 f(G ) = g(G ) since h(G2) = 0 because h is admissible


2 2
 g(G ) > g(G) since G2 is suboptimal, cost of reaching G is
2
less.
 f(G) = g(G) since h(G) = 0
 f(G ) > f(G) from above
2


Optimality of A* (proof)

 Suppose some suboptimal goal path G has been generated and is in


2
the frontier. Let n be an unexpanded node in the frontier such that n
is on a shortest path to an optimal goal G.

 f(G ) > f(G) from above


2
 h(n) ≤ h*(n) since h is admissible, h* is minimal distance.
 g(n) + h(n) ≤ g(n) + h*(n)
 f(n) ≤ f(G)
Hence f(G2) > f(n), and A* will never select G2 for expansion



Consistent heuristics
 A heuristic is consistent if for every node n, every successor n' of n generated by
any action a,

h(n) ≤ c(n,a,n') + h(n')


 Intuition: can’t do worse than going through n’.

 If h is consistent, we have
f(n') = g(n') + h(n') = g(n) + c(n,a,n') + h(n')
≥ g(n) + h(n) = f(n)
 i.e., f(n) is non-decreasing along any path.
 Theorem: If h(n) is consistent, A* using GRAPH-SEARCH is optimal




Optimality of A*

 A* expands nodes in order of increasing f value


 http://aispace.org/search/
 Gradually adds "f-contours" of nodes
 Contour i has all nodes with f=fi, where fi < fi+1



Properties of A*

Complete? Yes (unless there are infinitely many


nodes with f ≤ f(G) )
Time? Exponential
Space? Keeps all nodes in memory
Optimal? Yes




Admissible heuristics

E.g., for the 8-puzzle:


 h (n) = number of misplaced tiles
1
 h (n) = total Manhattan distance
2
(i.e., no. of squares from desired location of each tile)

h (S) = ?
1
h (S) = ?
2



Admissible heuristics

E.g., for the 8-puzzle:


 h (n) = number of misplaced tiles
1
 h (n) = total Manhattan distance
2
(i.e., no. of squares from desired location of each tile)

h (S) = ? 8
1
h (S) = ? 3+1+2+2+2+3+3+2 = 18
2


Dominance

 If h (n) ≥ h (n) for all n (both admissible) then h dominates h .


2 1 2 1
 h is better for search
2

 Typical search costs (average number of nodes expanded):

 d=12 IDS = 3,644,035 nodes


A*(h1) = 227 nodes
A*(h2) = 73 nodes
 d=24 IDS = too many nodes
A*(h1) = 39,135 nodes
A*(h2) = 1,641 nodes



Relaxed problems

A problem with fewer restrictions on the actions is


called a relaxed problem
The cost of an optimal solution to a relaxed problem is
an admissible heuristic for the original problem
If the rules of the 8-puzzle are relaxed so that a tile can
move anywhere, then h1(n) gives the shortest solution
If the rules are relaxed so that a tile can move to any
adjacent square, then h2(n) gives the shortest solution




Summary

Heuristic functions estimate costs of shortest paths


Good heuristics can dramatically reduce search cost
Greedy best-first search expands lowest h
 incomplete and not always optimal
A∗ search expands lowest g + h
 complete and optimal
 also optimally efficient (up to tie-breaks)
Admissible heuristics can be derived from exact
solution of relaxed problems
Missionaries and Cannibals

Old puzzle: has been around since 700 AD.


Solved by Computer!
Try it at home!
Good for depth-first search: basically, linear solution
path.
Another view of informed search: we use so much
domain knowledge and constraints that depth-first
search suffices.
The problem graph is larger than the problem statement.
 Taking the state graph as input seems problematic.

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