Heuristic Search Methods

Methods that use a heuristic function to provide specific knowledge about the problem:

Heuristic Functions Hill climbing Beam search Hill climbing (2) Greedy search

Heuristic Functions
To further improve the quality of the previous methods, we need to include problem-specific knowledge on the problem.
How to do this in such a way that the algorithms remain generally applicable ???

HEURISTIC FUNCTIONS: f: States --> Numbers f(T) : expresses the quality of the state T allow to express problem-specific knowledge, BUT: can be imported in a generic way in the algorithms.
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Examples (1):
Imagine the problem of finding a route on a road map and that the NET below is the road map: 4 4 A B C 3 5 5 S G 4 3 D 2 E F 4 Define f(T) = the straight-line distance from T to G A 10.4 S 11 D 8.9 E 6.9 F 3
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B 6.7

C 4 The estimate G can be wrong!

Examples (2): 8-puzzle

f1(T) = the number correctly placed tiles on the board: 1 3 2 f1
8 5 4 6 7

=4

f2(T) = number or incorrectly placed tiles on board:

gives (rough!) estimate of how far we are from goal 1 8 5 3 2 4 6 7

f2

=4

Most often, distance to goal heuristics are more useful !

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Examples (3): Manhattan distance

f3(T) = the sum of ( the horizontal + vertical distance that each tile is away from its final destination):
gives a better estimate of distance from the goal node 1 8 3 5 2 4 6 7

f3

= 1 + 4 + 2 + 3 = 10

Examples (4): Chess:

F(T) = (Value count of black pieces) - (Value count of white pieces)

= v( ) + v( ) + v( ) + v( ) - v( ) - v( )

Hill climbing
A basic heuristic search method: depth-first + heuristic

Hill climbing_1
Example: using the straight-line distance:
S A 10.4 D 8.9

A 10.4

6.9 3.0

6.7 B

F G

Perform depth-first, BUT: instead of left-toright selection, FIRST select the child with the best heuristic value

Hill climbing_1 algorithm:

1. QUEUE <-- path only containing the root;

2. WHILE
DO

QUEUE is not empty AND goal is not reached

remove the first path from the QUEUE; create new paths (to all children); reject the new paths with loops; sort new paths (HEURISTIC) ; add the new paths to front of QUEUE;

3. IF goal reached THEN success; ELSE failure;

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Beam search
Narrowing the width of the breadth-first search

Beam search (1):

Depth 1)
10.4
A S

8.9
D

Assume a prefixed WIDTH (example : 2 ) Perform breadthfirst, BUT: Only keep the WIDTH best new nodes
E

Depth 2)
A

S D D A

6.7

8.9

10.4

6.9

X X ignore ignore

depending on heuristic

at each new level.

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Beam search (2):

Depth 3)
A S D

4.0

B C _

X end ignore

6.9

6.7 B

Depth 4)
A

S D

Optimization: E ignore 3.0 F leafs that are not goal nodes (see C)
E

B
C _

F G

10.4 A

C _

0.0
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Beam search algorithm:

See exercises!

Properties:
Completeness:
Hill climbing: YES (backtracking), Beam search: NO

Speed/Memory:
Hill climbing: same as Depth-first (in worst case) Beam search: QUEUE always has length WIDTH, so memory usage is constant = WIDTH, time is of the order of WIDTH*m*b or WIDTH*d*b if no solution is found

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Hill climbing_2
== Beam search with a width of 1. Inspiring Example: climbing a hill in the fog.
Heuristic function: check the change in altitude in 4 directions: the strongest increase is the direction in which to move next.

Is identical to Hill climbing_1, except for dropping the backtracking. Produces a number of classical problems:

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Problems with Hill climbing_2:

Foothills: Local maximum Plateaus

Ridges

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Comments:
Foothills are local minima: hill climbing_2 cant detect the difference. Plateaus dont allow you to progress in any direction.
Foothills and plateaus require random jumps to be combined with the hill climbing algorithm.

Ridges neither: the directions you have fixed in advance all move downwards for this surface.
Ridges require new rules, more directly targeted to the goal, to be introduced (new directions to move) .
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Local search
Hill climbing_2 is an example of local search. In local search, we only keep track of 1 path and use it to compute a new path in the next step.
QUEUE is always of the form: ( p)
S A B C D

Another example:
MINIMAL COST search:

If p is the current path:

the next path extends p by adding the node with the smallest cost from the endpoint of p
2 D

3 B 3 E 5

4 C F
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Greedy search
Always expand the heuristically best nodes first.

Greedy search, or Heuristic best-first search:

S 1
35 15 10

30
40

3
27

20

2
25 45

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At each step, select the node with the best (in this case: lowest) heuristic value.

The open nodes

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Greedy search algorithm:

1. QUEUE <-- path only containing the root; 2. WHILE QUEUE is not empty AND goal is not reached

DO

remove the first path from the QUEUE; create new paths (to all children); reject the new paths with loops; add the new paths and sort the entire QUEUE;
(HEURISTIC)

3. IF goal reached THEN success; ELSE failure;

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