Problem Solving based on

Searching

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 Outline
◼ Introduction
◼ Problem-solving agents
◼ Problem formulation
◼ Problem types
◼ Example problems
◼ Basic search algorithms

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 Problem Solving by Search
◼ The solution of many problems can be described by finding a sequence of
actions that lead to a desirable goal.
◼ Each action changes the state and the aim is to find the sequence of actions and
states that lead from the initial (start) state to a final (goal) state.

◼ Problem can described by

◼ Initial state

◼ Operator or successor function

◼ State space

◼ Path

◼ Goal test

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 Problem Solving by Search

◼ Well-defined problem can be described by:

◼ Initial state - the state that the agent starts in

◼ Operator or successor function - for any state x

returns s(x), the set of states reachable from x with one action
◼ State space - all states reachable from initial by any sequence
of actions (set of possible states for a given problem)
◼ Path - function that assigns a cost to a path. Cost of a path is
the sum of costs of individual actions along the path
◼ Goal test - test to determine if at goal state

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 INTRODUCTION

◼ Problem solving involves

◼ Problem definition
◼ Problem analysis
◼ Knowledge representation - representing information
◼ Problem solving (selection of best techniques)

Knowledge representation is not just storing data into some

database, but it also enables an intelligent machine to learn
from that knowledge and experiences so that it can behave
intelligently like a human.

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Problem-solving agents

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 Example: Shortest path between VIT
Vellore Campus To VIT Chennai Campus
◼ To reach the campus in shortest route as well as cross
the minimum number of Toll-gate’s
◼ Problem formulation: It is one of the core steps of problem-solving which
decides what action should be taken to achieve the formulated goal.
◼ Formulate goal:
◼ Shortest path
◼ Formulate problem:
◼ states: various urban areas
◼ actions: drive between cities
◼ Find solution:
◼ sequence of urban areas, e.g., Kancheepuram, Thambaram,
Kelambakkam. 7
Example: Cont…

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 Problem types
◼ Deterministic, fully observable → Single-state problem
◼ Agent knows exactly which state it will be after any
action seq; solution is a sequence
◼ Deterministic, Non-observable → Sensorless problem
(multi-state problem)
◼ Also called sensorless problems (Conformant
problems)
◼ Agent may have no idea where it is; solution is a
sequence (not exactly known but limited to a set of
possible states)

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 Problem types
◼ Nondeterministic and/or partially observable → Contingency problem
◼ The agent doesn’t know what effect its actions will have.

◼ percepts provide new information about current state

◼ This could be due to the environment being partially observable, or

because of another agent.

◼ Ways to handle this:

◼ Solution is a list of conditional actions

◼ Interleave search and execution

◼ Example: Partially observable vacuum world (meaning you don’t

know the status of the other square)

◼ Unknown state space → Exploration problem
◼ States and actions of the environment are unknown. The agent must act
to discover them.
◼ Difficult! Ex: Online Search Agent
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 Problem types
◼ Single-state problem
◼ observable (at least the initial state)
◼ deterministic
◼ static
◼ discrete
◼ Multiple-state problem
◼ partially observable (initial state not observable)
◼ deterministic
◼ static
◼ discrete
◼ Contingency problem
◼ partially observable (initial state not observable)
◼ non-deterministic

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 Example: vacuum world
Need to clean the world using a vacuum cleaner. the world has just two locations.
Eight possible world states. There are three possible actions: left, right, and suck. The
goal is to clean up all the dirt, i.e., the goal is equivalent to the set of states {7,8}.

◼ Single-state, start in #5.

Solution?
◼

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 Example: vacuum world
◼ Single-state, start in #5.
Solution? [Right, Suck]
◼

◼ Sensorless, start in
{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8} e.g.,
Right goes to {2,4,6,8}
Solution?
◼

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 Example: vacuum world
◼ Sensorless, start in
{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8} e.g.,
Right goes to {2,4,6,8}
Solution?
[Right,Suck,Left,Suck] (Random actions)
◼ No fixed actions to reach the goal.

◼ Contingency
◼ Nondeterministic: Suck may
dirty a clean carpet [Murphy's law]
◼ Partially observable: location, dirt at current location.

◼ Percept: [L, Clean], i.e., start in #5 or #7

Solution?
Murphy's law “Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” As a rule-based system,
automation does what you tell it to do. If, then, you give it faulty or incorrect
instructions, it will either not work at all, or complete the task incorrectly. 14
 Example: vacuum world
◼ Sensorless, start in
{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8} e.g.,
Right goes to {2,4,6,8}
Solution?
[Right,Suck,Left,Suck]

◼ Contingency
◼ Nondeterministic: Suck may
dirty a clean carpet [Murphy's law]
◼ Partially observable: location, dirt at current location.
◼ Percept: [L, Clean], i.e., start in #5 or #7
Solution? [Right, if dirt then Suck]

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 Single-state problem formulation
A problem is defined by four items:

1. Initial state e.g., "at Katpadi"

2. Actions or successor function S(x) = set of action–state pairs
◼ e.g., S(Katpadi) = {<Wallaja → Kancheepuram, Padappai>, … }

3. Goal test, can be

◼ explicit, e.g., x = "at VIT Chennai"
◼ implicit, e.g., Cross-Min no. of Toll-gate or Shortest path(x)

4. Path cost (additive)

◼ e.g., sum of distances, number of actions executed, etc.
◼ c(x,a,y) is the step cost, assumed to be ≥ 0

◼ A solution is a sequence of actions leading from the initial state to a goal state

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 Selecting a state space
◼ Real world is absurdly complex
→ state space must be abstracted for problem solving

◼ (Abstract) state = set of real states

◼ (Abstract) action = complex combination of real actions

◼ e.g., “Katpadi → Chennai" represents a complex set of possible routes, detours, rest
stops, etc.
◼ For guaranteed realizability, any real state "in Katpadi“ must get to some real
state "in Katpadi“

◼ (Abstract) solution = set of real paths that are solutions in the real world

◼ Each abstract action should be "easier" than the original problem

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 Vacuum world state space graph

◼ states?
◼ actions?
◼ goal test?
◼ path cost?

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 Vacuum world state space graph

◼ states? integer dirt and robot location

◼ actions? Left, Right, Suck
◼ goal test? no dirt at all locations
◼ path cost? 1 per action

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 Example: The 8-puzzle

◼ states?
◼ actions?
◼ goal test?
◼ path cost?

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 Example: The 8-puzzle

◼ states? locations of tiles

◼ actions? move blank left, right, up, down
◼ goal test? = goal state (given)
◼ path cost? 1 per move
◼
[Note: optimal solution of n-Puzzle family is NP-hard]

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 Tree search algorithms
◼ Basic idea:
◼ offline, simulated exploration of state space by generating
successors of already-explored states (a.k.a.~expanding states)
◼

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Tree search example

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Tree search example

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Tree search example

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 Implementation: general tree search

Fringe – Queue of nodes

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 Implementation: states vs. nodes
◼ A state is a (representation of) a physical configuration
◼ A node is a data structure constituting part of a search tree
includes parent, children, depth, path cost g(x) and state(s) that do
not have parent, children, depth, and path cost.

◼ The Expand function creates new nodes, filling in the various

fields and using the SuccessorFn of the problem to create the
corresponding states.
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 Search strategies
◼ Searching is a process to find the solution for a given set of
problems.
◼ Rational agents or Problem-solving agents used these search
strategies to solve a specific problem and provide the best result.
◼ A search strategy is defined by picking the order of node
expansion
◼ Strategies are evaluated along the following dimensions:
◼ completeness: does it always find a solution if one exists?

◼ time complexity: number of nodes generated

◼ space complexity: maximum number of nodes in memory

◼ optimality: does it always find a least-cost solution?

If an algorithm is complete, it means that if at least one solution exists then

the algorithm is guaranteed find a solution in a finite amount of time. ...
If a search algorithm is optimal, then when it finds a solution it finds the
best solution. 28
 Search strategies
◼ Time and space complexity are measured in terms of
◼ b: maximum branching factor of the search tree
◼ d: depth of the least-cost solution
◼ m: maximum depth of the state space (may be ∞)

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 Uninformed search strategies
◼ ‘Uninformed Search’ means the machine blindly follows the algorithm
regardless of whether right or wrong, efficient or in-efficient. These algorithms
are brute force operations, Thus uninformed search algorithms are also called
blind search algorithms.

◼ They don’t have extra information about the search space; the only information
they have is on how to traverse or visit the nodes in the tree.

◼ Uninformed search strategies use only the information available in the problem
definition(blind search - without using any domain specific knowledge.).

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Different types of Uninformed search
strategies

◼ Breadth-first search
◼ Uniform-cost search
◼ Depth-first search
◼ Depth-limited search
◼ Iterative deepening search
◼ Bidirectional Search

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 Breadth-first search
◼ This algorithm searches breadthwise in a tree or graph.
◼ Searching started from the root node of the tree and expands all
successor node at the current level before moving to nodes of next
level.
◼ Advantages:
• BFS will provide a solution if any solution exists.
• If there are more than one solutions for a given problem, then BFS will
provide the minimal solution which requires the least number of steps.
◼ Disadvantages:
• It requires lots of memory since each level of the tree must be saved into
memory to expand the next level.
• BFS needs lots of time if the solution is far away from the root node.

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 Breadth-first search
◼ Expand shallowest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe is a FIFO queue, i.e., new successors go at end

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 Breadth-first search
◼ Expand shallowest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe is a FIFO queue, i.e., new successors go at
end

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 Breadth-first search
◼ Expand shallowest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe is a FIFO queue, i.e., new successors go at end

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 Breadth-first search
◼ Expand shallowest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe is a FIFO queue, i.e., new successors go at end

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 Properties of breadth-first search

◼ Complete? Yes (if b is finite)

◼ Time? O(bd)

◼ Space? O(bd) (keeps every node in memory)

◼ Optimal? Yes (if cost = 1 per step)

◼ Space is the bigger problem (more than time)

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 Uniform-Cost Search
◼ Traversing a weighted tree or graph.

◼ This algorithm comes into play when a different cost is available for
each edge.

◼ The primary goal of the uniform-cost search is to find a path to the

goal node which has the lowest cumulative cost.

◼ Uniform-cost search expands nodes according to their path costs form

the root node.

◼ It can be used to solve any graph/tree where the optimal cost is in

demand.

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 Uniform-Cost Search
◼ Implemented by the priority queue. It gives maximum priority to the
lowest cumulative cost.

◼ g(n) = cost of the path from start node to the current node

◼ Uniform cost search is equivalent to BFS algorithm if the path cost of

all edges is the same.

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Uniform-Cost Search
S0
S0{B1, A3, C8}
B1{A3,C8,G21}
A3{D6,C8,E10,G18,G21}
D6{C8,E10,G18,G21}
C8{E10,G13,G18,G21}
E10{G13,G18,G21}
G13{G18,G21}
Path = S C G => Cost 13
No of nodes expanded
(including Goal node) = 7

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Uniform-Cost Search - Exercise

Source node - A, Goal node – H What path is to expand the maximum

Path cost = ? node to reach the goal node?

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Uniform-Cost Search - Exercise

Source node - A, Goal node – H What path is to expand the maximum

Path cost = ? node to reach the goal node?
Minimum cost 25, Ans: A C B E F G D H = COST - 27
Path A C D H 42
 Uniform-cost search
◼ Advantages:
• Uniform cost search is optimal because at every state the path with the least cost is
chosen.
◼ Disadvantages:
• It does not care about the number of steps involve in searching and only concerned
about path cost. Due to which this algorithm may be stuck in an infinite loop.

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 Uniform-cost search
◼ Expand lowest path -cost unexpanded node

◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = priority queue ordered by path cost

◼ Equivalent to breadth-first if step costs all equal

◼ Complete? Yes (if b is finite and costs are stepped costs are zero)
◼ Time Complexity: O(b(c/ϵ)) where, ϵ -> is the lowest cost, c -> optimal cost
◼ Space complexity: O(b(c/ϵ))
◼ Optimal: Yes (even for non-even cost)

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Depth-first search

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Expand deepest unexpanded node
◼ Implementation:
◼ fringe = LIFO stack, i.e., put successors at front

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 Depth-first search
◼ Advantages:
◼ DFS requires very little memory as it only needs to store a stack
of the nodes on the path from the root node to the current node.
◼ It takes less time to reach the goal node than the BFS
algorithm(if it traverses in the right path).
◼ Disadvantages:
◼ There is the possibility that many states keep reoccurring, and
there is no guarantee of finding the solution.
◼ The DFS algorithm goes for deep down searching and sometimes
it may go to the infinite loop.

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 Properties of depth-first search
◼ Complete? No: fails in infinite-depth spaces, spaces with loops
◼ Modify to avoid repeated states along path
◼

→ complete in finite spaces

◼ Time? O(bm): terrible if m is much larger than d

◼ but if solutions are dense, may be much faster than breadth-first
m – maximum depth
◼ Space? O(bm), i.e., linear space!

◼ Optimal? No

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 Depth-limited search
◼ The depth limit solves the infinite-path problem.
◼ Depth-limited search can be terminated with two Conditions of failure:
◼ Standard Failure Value(SFV): The SFV tells that there is no solution to the
problem.
◼ Cutoff Failure Value(CFV): The Cutoff Failure Value tells that there is no
solution within the given depth-limit.

Limit 0

Limit 1

Limit = 2

Calculate, Depth = root to leaf

Calculate, Height = leaf to root 61
 Depth-limited search
Maximum Limit 2.

Limit 0

Limit 1

Limit 2

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 Depth-limited search
= depth-first search with depth limit l,
i.e., nodes at depth l have no successors
Recursive implementation:

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 Properties of Depth-limited search

◼ Complete: No
◼ Time Complexity: O(bl) where, l -> depth-limit
◼ Space complexity: O(bl)
◼ Optimal: No
◼ Advantages:
◼ Depth-limited search is Memory efficient.
◼ Disadvantages:
• Depth-limited search also has a disadvantage of incompleteness.
• It may not be optimal if the problem has more than one solution.

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 Iterative deepening search
• It is a combination of DFS and BFS algorithms.
• It finds out the best depth limit and does it by gradually increasing
the limit until a goal is found.
• It combines the benefits of Breadth-first search's fast search and
depth-first search's memory efficiency.
• The iterative search algorithm is useful uninformed search when
search space is large, and depth of goal node is unknown.
Advantages:
• It combines the benefits of BFS and DFS search algorithm in
terms of fast search and memory efficiency.
Disadvantages:
• The main drawback of IDDFS is that it repeats all the work of
the previous phase.
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Iterative deepening search

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Iterative deepening search l =0

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Iterative deepening search l =1

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Iterative deepening search l =2

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Iterative deepening search l =3

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 Iterative deepening search
◼ Number of nodes generated in a depth-limited search to depth d
with branching factor b:
NDLS = b + b1 + b2 + … + bd-2 + bd-1 + bd

◼ Number of nodes generated in an iterative deepening search to

depth d with branching factor b:
NIDS = d b^1 + (d-1)b^2 + … + 3bd-2 +2bd-1 + 1bd

◼ For b = 10, d = 5,
◼ NDLS = 10 + 100 + 1,000 + 10,000 + 100,000 = 111,110
◼

◼ NIDS = 50 + 400 + 3,000 + 20,000 + 100,000 = 123,450

◼ Overhead = (123,456 - 111,111)/111,111 = 11%

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 Properties of iterative deepening
search

◼ Complete? Yes

◼ Time? O(bd)

◼ Space? O(bd)

◼ Optimal? Yes, if step cost = 1

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 Bidirectional Search Algorithm

◼ Bidirectional search algorithm runs two simultaneous searches,

one from initial state called as forward-search and other from goal
node called as backward-search.
◼ Bidirectional search replaces one single search graph with two
small subgraphs in which one starts the search from an initial
vertex and other starts from goal vertex. The search stops when
these two graphs intersect each other.
◼ Bidirectional search can use search techniques such as BFS, DFS,
DLS, etc.

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 Bidirectional Search Algorithm

Step 1: 1 is the initial node and 16 is the goal node, and 9 is the intersection
node.
Step 2: We will start searching simultaneously from start to goal node and
backward from goal to start node.
Step 3: Whenever the forward search and backward search intersect at one
node, then the searching stops.
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 Bidirectional Search Algorithm

◼ Advantages:
• Bidirectional search is fast.
• Bidirectional search requires less memory
◼ Disadvantages:
• Implementation of the bidirectional search tree is difficult.
• In bidirectional search, one should know the goal state in advance.

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 Properties of Bidirectional Search
Algorithm

◼ Completeness: Bidirectional Search is complete if we use BFS in both

searches.
◼ Time Complexity: Time complexity of bidirectional search using BFS is
O(bd).
◼ Space Complexity: Space complexity of bidirectional search is O(bd).
◼ Optimal: Bidirectional search is Optimal.

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Summary of algorithms

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