TAI2151 – ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

FUNDAMENTALS
LECTURE 6 – SOLVING
PROBLEMS BY SEARCHING
(INFORMED SEARCH)
PART 2

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 SEARCH STRATEGIES

• Strategy: defines the order of node expansion

• Important properties of strategies:
• Completeness: always find a solution (will not stuck in a loop)
• Time complexity: number of nodes generated/expanded
• Space complexity: maximum number of nodes in memory
• Optimality: always get a least-cost solution
• Time and space complexity measured in terms of:
• b: maximum branching factor of the search tree
• d: depth of a solution with minimal distance to root
• m: maximum depth of the state space (may be infinity)

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 UNINFORMED VS INFORMED SEARCH STRATEGIES

• Uninformed search: blind search

• Search without knowledge
• If the search space is huge, can use too much time
• If Google returns the search result after 1 day, will you
use it?
• Informed search:
• Search the most promising space
• Find a solution more quickly and within limited time
• Often find the best solution

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 TO FORMULATE A SEARCH PROBLEM

• Which properties matter and how to represent?

• Get the initial state, goal state, possible intermediate states
• Which actions are possible and how to represent?
• Operator set: actions and transition model
• Which action is next?
• Decide through the path cost function
• How to know a solution is reached?
• Goal test
• In summary, we define a problem through the initial state, goal state,
actions, transition model, path cost, goal test
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Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 CHALLENGE: SELECT A SPACE STATE
• Real world is complicated
• State space must be abstracted
• Abstract state: set of real world states
• Abstract operator/actions: complex combination of
real actions
• For e.g.: Arad -- > Bucharest: all the possible routes
• Abstract solution
• Set of real paths that are solutions in the real world

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 TERMINOLOGY
• Agent: AI or someone who try to solve the problem
• States: a state of the agent in its environment.
• Initial state: initial starting state
• Goal state: solution state
• Operators/Actions: a kind of (movement) that make
within a state (choices that can be made within a
state)
• Goal test: way to determine whether a given state is a
goal state
• A machine needs some way to encode whether a state
happens to be in is the goal state
• Path Cost: numerical cost associated with a given path

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 EXAMPLE: VACUUM WORLD
• Given all the possible states, i.e.
the state space of a vacuum
which suck the dirt.
• Assume that the current task
environment is observable, and
the observed state is state 5.
• How should the vacuum react?

RIGHT, SUCK

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 EXAMPLE: VACUUM WORLD
• However, it is possible to have
unobservable states, means that
agent does not have the
knowledge of where it is
(uninformed search):
• {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}
• If the vacuum is at the RIGHT,
then the possible states are 2, 4,
6, 8.
• If the vacuum is at the LEFT, then
the possible states are 1, 3, 5, 7
• The possible actions are:
• [RIGHT, SUCK, LEFT, SUCK] 8

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 EXAMPLE: VACUUM WORLD
• If the agent has a sensor to sense
the dirt, now knowledge is
provided
• What if the area is clean?
• [RIGHT, if DIRT then SUCK] or
• [LEFT, if DIRT then SUCK]
• Goal: no dirt at all in all the places

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 SUCK RIGHT

LOOP LOOP

Assume that we are in state 5.

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Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 THE 8-PUZZLE PROBLEM: 3X3 BOARD WITH 8 TILES & 1 BLANK

Operators/actions: Move the tiles up, down, left or right.

Average solution cost is about 22 steps; branching factor is 3.
Good heuristic function can reduce the search process

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 THE 8-PUZZLE PROBLEM CONTINUED ...
• Agent: puzzle
• States: a state description specifies the location of
each of the eight tiles in one of the nine squares.
• Operators/actions: blank moves left, right, up, or
down.
• Goal test: state matches the goal configuration
shown in the right.
• Path Cost: each step costs 1, so that the path cost
is just the length of the path.

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 HEURISTIC FUNCTION

• A node is expand based on an evaluation function, i.e.

heuristic function
• Estimate the cost to reach the goal
• To formulate a heuristic function:
• Design based on external knowledge, experience or
intuition
• Have a long history in AI domain or other research domain

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Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 HEURISTIC FUNCTION
• Depend on the domain used
• Choosing appropriate function greatly affects the effectiveness of the
state-space search: we try to tell the system how to perform the
search
• A good heuristic
• Accurately represents the actual cost to reach a goal state
• Tell clearly in the state-space what to expand next
• Quickly reach the solution (Use to reduce search space)

• In Lecture 5, since the heuristic function of best first search is not good
enough, so A* is invented where the heuristic function consider the
cost from each node to the goal and from the starting node to next
node.
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Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 Inventing Heuristic functions
• How to invent a good heuristic function?
• Any function is possible, but will it help the search algorithm?
• Based on properties:
– Admissible (admissible heuristic function is always
optimal)
– Complete (will not stuck in loop)
•

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 WHAT IS ADMISSIBLE?
• Assume that:
• h(n) = heuristic estimate from n to the goal
• h*(n) = optimal cost/true cost from n to the goal
• h(n) is admissible if and only if for all nN: h(n) <= h*(n)
• When an algorithm is admissible, it can guarantee to find the optimal solution
• How to know the design heuristic function is admissible? Through proofing

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 EXAMPLE OF PROOF
Suppose some suboptimal goal G2 has been generated and is in
the queue. Let n be an unexpanded node in the queue such that
n is on a shortest path to an optimal goal G.

• Assume the optimal cost is C*

• f(G2) = g(G2) + h(G2)
• f(G2) = g(G2) since h(G2) is 0
• g(G2)>C*
• f(G) = g(G) since h(G) = 0
• Based on above, f(G2)>g(G) since G2 is suboptimal
• Based on above, f(G2) > f(G)
• h(n) <= C*
• f(n) = g(n)+h(n) <= C*
• From the above, we have f(n) <= C* <f(G2), and h is admissible
• Thus, A* will never select G2 for expansion.
Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches
 CONSISTENT HEURISTICS

• Consistent (or monotone)

• Must fulfil the rule:
• Each node n, and each child
n’ (successor of n):
• h(n) <= c(n, n’) + h(n’)
• Each goal node G: h(G) = 0
• Consistent heuristic function
is admissible

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 Admissible Heuristics
• A* search uses an admissible (never over estimate, get us the
optimal solution) heuristic in which
h(n)  h*(n)
where h*(n) is the TRUE cost from n.

• h(n) is a consistent underestimate of the true cost

• For example, hSLD(n) never overestimates the actual road

distance.

Remember triangle inequality:

two sides of a triangle cannot add up to less than the third side.

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 PROPERTIES OF A*

• A* expands every path along which f(n) < C*

• A* will never expand any node which f(n) > C*
• If h is monotone A* will expand any node such that f(n) < C*
• Therefore, A* expands all the nodes for which f(n) < C* and a subset of the
nodes for which f(n) = C*
• Therefore, if h1(n) < h2(n), the subset of nodes expanded is smaller for h2(n)

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 Inventing Heuristic functions

• Examples of Heuristic Functions for A*

• the 8-puzzle problem
• h1(n) = the number of tiles in the wrong position
• is this admissible?
• h2(n) = the sum of distances of the tiles from their goal positions,
where distance is counted as the sum of vertical and horizontal tile
displacements (“Manhattan distance”)
• is this admissible?

Move 3 tiles
Move 2 tiles

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 Breadth-first Research

All the possible states

from initial state to
goal state

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 ADMISSIBLE HEURISTICS: THE 8-PUZZLE

5 4 1 2 3

Goal
Start 6 1 8 8 4
7 3 2 7 6 5
• Path cost: total number of vertical or horizontal moves
• Two different heuristics:
• h1(n) = number of misplaced tiles (wrong position).
• h2(n) = total Manhattan distance
(number of squares to desired location for each tile)

So, what are h1(start) and h2(start)?

h1(s) = 7
h2(s) = 2 + 3 + 3 + 2 + 4 + 2 + 0 + 2 = 18
Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches
 Best-first (Greedy) search: h(n) = number of misplaced tiles
1 2 3
4 8 b 4
Initial state 5
7 6 5

Goal State

3
3

5 3

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 Best-first (Greedy) search: h(n) = number of misplaced tiles

1 2 3
8 b 4
7 6 5

Goal State

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 A* on 8-puzzle with h(n) = no. of misplaced tiles

1 2 3
8 b 4
7 6 5

Goal State

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 DOMINANCE AND PRUNING POWER OF HEURISTICS
• Definition:
• A heuristic function h2 dominates h1(more informed than h1) if both are
admissible and for every node n, h2(n) is greater than h1(n) (h2(n)  h1(n)).
• h2 is better for search where
• A* using h2 will never expand more nodes than A* using h1
• Search steps in h2 is lesser compare to h1

• An A* search with a dominating heuristic function h2 has the property that any
node it expands is also expanded by A* with h1 (Hart, Nillson & Raphale, 1968).

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 EFFECTIVE BRANCHING FACTOR
• Branching factor is used to measure the effectiveness of a heuristic
• Let n be the total number of nodes generated by A* for a particular problem
and d the depth of the solution; b* be the effective branching factor
• Effective branching factor b* is defined by n = 1 + b*+(b*)^2+…+(b*)^d
𝑑
• b* ≈ 𝑛
• A good value of b* is 1
• If b* is 100, means that it needs to consider 100 children for each node

b*=1.79
6≈1+1.79+(1.79)^2

n (successor from
initial state) = 6
d=2

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 Comparison Between Search Algorithms
• Given two admissible heuristics h1(n) and h2(n), which is better?
• If h2(n)  h1(n) for all n, then
– h2 is said to dominate h1
– h2 is better for search
• For our 8-puzzle heuristic, does h2 dominate h1?

Each data point corresponds to 100 instances of the

8-puzzle problem in which the solution depth varies.
Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches
PROPERTIES OF COMPLETENESS FOR OPTIMAL

• Proof:
• A* will expand only nodes whose f-values <= C* where C* is an
optimal cost path
• The evaluation function of a goal node along an optimal path equals
C*
• Lemma:
• Anytime before A* terminate, there exists and OPEN node n’ on an
optimal path with f(n’) <= C*
• C* = optimal cost path

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 INVENTING HEURISTIC FUNCTIONS

• How can we invent admissible heuristics in general?

• look at “relaxed” problem where constraints are removed
• Relaxed problem: a problem with fewer restrictions on the
actions (obtain by removing constraints)
• e.g.., we can move in straight lines between cities
• e.g.., we can move tiles independently of each other

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 Inventing Heuristic Functions Continued ...
• Hypothetical answer:
– Heuristic are generated from relaxed problems
– Hypothesis: relaxed problems are easier to solve
• In relaxed models the search space has more operators, or more
directed arcs
• Example: 8 puzzle:
– A tile can be moved from A to B if A is adjacent to B and B is clear
– We can generate relaxed problems by removing one or more of the
conditions
• A tile can be moved from A to B if A is adjacent to B
• ...if B is blank
• A tile can be moved from A to B.

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 Inventing Heuristic Functions Continued ...
• Powerful heuristic – could be harder to compute
but more powerful where fewer nodes expanded
• Not every relaxed problem is easy
– An easy problem can be solved optimally by a
greedy algorithm
• If a function causes exhaustive search, that is
impractical except on small problems

Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches

 Improving Heuristics
• If we have several heuristics which are not dominating the
others:
– Select the max value as given below:
If a collection of admissible heuristics h1 ...hm is available
for a problem, and none dominates any others, we can have
best of all by defining
h(n) = max(h1(n), ..., hm(n)).
• Sometimes the first invented function is not good
– With more experience
– With more discovered new knowledge
– Improve the function (that is research concept)

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Solving Problems By Searching – Informed Searches