Introduction to AI

AAPP002-4-2 Ver 1.0

Intro to Informed Search

 Topic & Structure of The Lesson

• Introduction to Informed Search

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 Learning Outcomes

• At the end of this topic, You should be

able to
• Introduction to Informed Search
• Heuristic search
• Generate and test
• Best First Search

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 Key Terms You Must Be Able To
Use
• If you have mastered this topic, you should be able to use the
following terms correctly in your assignments and exams:

• Heuristics
• Greedy search search
• Best first search

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 Introduction to informed search

• The search space of a problem: Number of possible

states in the search.

• Searching large search spaces is inefficient using

uninformed methods.

• Solution: Additional domain knowledge about the

problem

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 Heuristics

• To do this, we use heuristics (informed

guesses)

– Heuristic means “serving to aid discovery”

Can find solutions more efficiently than can an

uninformed search

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 Heuristics

Heuristics are educated guesses, intuitive

judgments or simply common sense.

A heuristic adds to the decrease of search in a

problem-solving activity.

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 Heuristic search

• Try to explore the promising paths before the less promising path.
• Evaluation function: scores a node in the search tree according to
how close to the target state it seems to be(will just be a guess but
should b helpful)
• Heuristic Searching
•

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 Heuristic search

• We define a heuristic function h(n):

– Is computed from the state at node n
– Uses domain-specific information in some way

• Heuristics can estimate the “goodness” of a particular

node (or state) n:
– How close is n to a goal node?
– What might be the minimal cost path from n to a
goal node?

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 Heuristic search algorithms

• Generate and Test

• Best first search
• Greedy search
• Hill climbing
• Simulated annealing
• Min-Max algorithm
• Algorithm A search
• Admissible hueristics
• A* search
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 Generate-and-Test

Algorithm
1. Generate a possible solution.
2. Test to see if this is actually a solution.
3. Quit if a solution has been found.
Otherwise, return to step 1.

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 Generate-and-Test

• Acceptable for simple problems.

• Inefficient for problems with large space.

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 Generate-and-Test

• Exhaustive generate-and-test.
• Heuristic generate-and-test: not consider
paths that seem unlikely to lead to a
solution.
• Plan generate-test:
- Create a list of candidates.
- Apply generate-and-test to that list.

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 Generate-and-Test

Example: coloured blocks

“Arrange four 6-sided cubes in a row, with
each side of
each cube painted one of four colours, such
that on all four
sides of the row one block face of each
colour is showing.”

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 Generate-and-Test

Example: coloured blocks

Heuristic: if there are more red faces than

other colours
then, when placing a block with several red
faces, use few
of them as possible as outside faces.

15
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 Best-first search

• Uses a list of nodes that are to be further explored.

• Always removes the best node from the list i.e. the one
with the best score.
• The successors of the best node will be evaluated and
will be added to the list.

• Uses a priority queue rather than a stack or simple

queue.

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 Algorithm

• Start with List = [initial state]

• While List not empty do:

• (a) Remove the best node from the List.

• (b) If it is the goal node then return with success.

Otherwise find its successors.

• (c) Assign the successor nodes a score using the

evaluation function and add the scored nodes to List.

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 Search tree illustrating best first
search
A : 10

B:5 C:3

D:4 E:2 F:6

G:0

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 Best First Search: Example
A Open
B 4 D 6 closed
C 4

E 5 F 6 G 4 H 3 I 6 J 4

K 7 L 8 M 5 N 4 O 2 P 3 Q 7 R 4

Note: P is the goal

S 6 T 1
H.W: Repeat the same example when T is the goal.
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 Best-First Search

• OPEN: nodes that have been generated,

but have not examined.
This is organized as a priority queue.

• CLOSED: nodes that have already been

examined.
Whenever a new node is generated, check
whether it has been generated before.

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 Rations for evaluation function

• Good evaluation function: cut down the amount

of search
• Should not be expensive

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 Termination conditions

• Instead of terminating when a path is found, terminate

when the shortest incomplete path is longer than the
shortest complete path.

• In most problems of practical interest, the entire search

space graph will be too large to be explicitly represented
in a computer memory.

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 Results of Best-First search

• It is not guaranteed to find an optimal solution, but

normally it finds some solution faster than any other
methods.
• The performance varies directly with the accuracy of the
heuristic evaluation function.

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 Greedy best-first search

• Greedy search is the best-first search strategy, with a

simple evaluation function of f(n) = h(n).

• It relies only on the heuristic to select what is currently

believed to be closest to the goal state.

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 Out-and-about in Symbolania (1)
•

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 Greedy Search in Symbolania (1)

• E to A
• h(E)=39
• h(D)=25 h(F)=47
• h(A)=0 h(C)=20 h(E)=39 h(F)=47
• -> Path = EDA
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 Greedy Search in Symbolania (2)

• F to A
• h(F)=47
• h(D)=25 h(E)=39 h(G)=65
• h(A)=0 h(C)=20 h(E)=39 h(E)=39 h(F)=47 h(G)=65
• -> Path = FDA (optimal path is FEDA)
• Greedy search is not optimal
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 Greedy Search in Symbolania (3)

• H to A
• h(H)=61
• h(I)=50 h(G)=65
• h(H)=61 h(G)=65
• h(I)=50 h(G)=65
• ...
• Greedy search is not complete

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 Results

• Results of Greedy search algorithm may not be optimal,

but is often efficient .

• Greedy Search is generally faster than the uninformed

methods
– It has more knowledge about the problem domain!

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 Limitations of Greedy Search

• Resembles DFS in that it tends to follow a path that is initially

good, and thus:
– Not complete (could chase an infinite path or get
caught in cycles if no open/closed lists)
– Not optimal (a better solution could exist through an
expensive node)

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 Quick Review Question

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 Summary of Main Teaching Points

• The search techniques apply to a search

tree which contains all the different
permutations or choices possible when
starting from one state and trying to reach
a ‘goal’ state

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 Question and Answer Session

Q&A

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 What we will cover next

• Hill Climbing

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