Module 3

Informed Search
Prepared by
Dr. Megharani Patil
 Intro
• informed search algorithm contains an array of
knowledge such as how far we are from the goal,
path cost, how to reach to goal node, etc.
• This knowledge help agents to explore less to the
search space and find more efficiently the goal
node.
• The informed search algorithm is more useful for
large search space.
• Informed search algorithm uses the idea of
heuristic, so it is also called Heuristic search.
 Heuristics function
• Heuristic is a function which is used in Informed
Search, and it finds the most promising path.
• It takes the current state of the agent as its input and
produces the estimation of how close agent is from
the goal.
• The heuristic method, however, might not always give
the best solution, but it guaranteed to find a good
solution in reasonable time.
• Heuristic function estimates how close a state is to the
goal. It is represented by h(n), and it calculates the
cost of an optimal path between the pair of states. The
value of the heuristic function is always positive.
 Admissibility
• h(n) <= h*(n)
Here h(n) is heuristic cost, and h*(n) is the
estimated cost. Hence heuristic cost should be
less than or equal to the estimated cost.
• Algorithms related to path finding, a heuristic
function is said to be admissible if it never
overestimates the cost of reaching the goal, i.e.
the cost it estimates to reach the goal is not
higher than the lowest possible cost from the
current point in the path.
 Pure heuristic search
• Pure heuristic search is the simplest form of
heuristic search algorithms. It expands nodes
based on their heuristic value h(n). It maintains
two lists, OPEN and CLOSED list. In the CLOSED
list, it places those nodes which have already
expanded and in the OPEN list, it places nodes
which have yet not been expanded.
• On each iteration, each node n with the lowest
heuristic value is expanded and generates all its
successors and n is placed to the closed list. The
algorithm continues unit a goal state is found.
 Main Types
• Best First Search Algorithm(Greedy search)
• A* Search Algorithm
 Best First Search Algorithm(Greedy
search)
• Greedy best-first search algorithm always selects the
path which appears best at that moment. It is the
combination of depth-first search and breadth-first
search algorithms.
• It uses the heuristic function and search. Best-first
search allows us to take the advantages of both
algorithms.
• With the help of best-first search, at each step, we can
choose the most promising node. In the best first
search algorithm, we expand the node which is closest
to the goal node and the closest cost is estimated by
heuristic function, f(n)= h(n).
• The greedy best first algorithm is implemented by the
priority queue.
 Algo
• Step 1: Place the starting node into the OPEN list.
• Step 2: If the OPEN list is empty, Stop and return failure.
• Step 3: Remove the node n, from the OPEN list which has the
lowest value of h(n), and places it in the CLOSED list.
• Step 4: Expand the node n, and generate the successors of node n.
• Step 5: Check each successor of node n, and find whether any
node is a goal node or not. If any successor node is goal node,
then return success and terminate the search, else proceed to
Step 6.
• Step 6: For each successor node, algorithm checks for evaluation
function f(n), and then check if the node has been in either OPEN
or CLOSED list. If the node has not been in both list, then add it to
the OPEN list.
• Step 7: Return to Step 2.
 Example

At each iteration, each node is expanded using evaluation

function f(n)=h(n)
Initialization: Open [A, B], Closed [S]
Iteration 1: Open [A], Closed [S, B]
Iteration 2: Open [E, F, A], Closed [S, B]
: Open [E, A], Closed [S, B, F]
Iteration 3: Open [I, G, E, A], Closed [S, B, F]
: Open [I, E, A], Closed [S, B, F, G]
Hence the final solution path will be: S---->
B----->F----> G
 Search Strategy
• Time Complexity: The worst case time complexity of
Greedy best first search is O(bm).
• Space Complexity: The worst case space complexity of
Greedy best first search is O(bm). Where, m is the
maximum depth of the search space.
• Complete: Greedy best-first search is also incomplete,
even if the given state space is finite. It can be stuck in
loops, is susceptible to wrong start and quality of
heuristic function.
• Optimal: Greedy best first search algorithm is not
optimal.
 Adv & Dis
Advantages:
• Best first search can switch between BFS and DFS
by gaining the advantages of both the algorithms.
• This algorithm is more efficient than BFS and DFS
algorithms.
Disadvantages:
• It can behave as an unguided depth-first search in
the worst case scenario.
• It can get stuck in a loop as DFS.
• This algorithm is not optimal.
 A* Search Algorithm

• A* search is the most commonly known form of best-first search.

It uses heuristic function h(n), and cost to reach the node n from
the start state g(n).
• It has combined features of UCS and greedy best-first search, by
which it solve the problem efficiently.
• A* search algorithm finds the shortest path through the search
space using the heuristic function. This search algorithm expands
less search tree and provides optimal result faster.
• In A* search algorithm, we use search heuristic as well as the cost
to reach the node. Hence we can combine both costs as following,
and this sum is called as a fitness number.
 Algo
• Algorithm of A* search:
• Step1: Place the starting node in the OPEN list.
• Step 2: Check if the OPEN list is empty or not, if the list is empty
then return failure and stops.
• Step 3: Select the node from the OPEN list which has the smallest
value of evaluation function (g+h), if node n is goal node then
return success and stop, otherwise
• Step 4: Expand node n and generate all of its successors, and put n
into the closed list. For each successor n', check whether n' is
already in the OPEN or CLOSED list, if not then compute
evaluation function for n' and place into Open list.
• Step 5: Else if node n' is already in OPEN and CLOSED, then it
should be attached to the back pointer which reflects the lowest
g(n') value.
• Step 6: Return to Step 2.
 Adv & Dis
Advantages:
• A* search algorithm is the best algorithm than other search
algorithms.
• A* search algorithm is optimal and complete.
• This algorithm can solve very complex problems.
Disadvantages:
• It does not always produce the shortest path as it mostly
based on heuristics and approximation.
• A* search algorithm has some complexity issues.
• The main drawback of A* is memory requirement as it
keeps all generated nodes in the memory, so it is not
practical for various large-scale problems.
Example
Initialization: {(S, 5)}
Iteration1: {(S--> A, 4), (S-->G, 10)}
Iteration2: {(S--> A-->C, 4), (S--> A-->B, 7),
(S-->G, 10)}
Iteration3: {(S--> A-->C--->G, 6), (S-->
A-->C--->D, 11), (S--> A-->B, 7), (S-->G, 10)}
Iteration 4 will give the final result,
as S--->A--->C--->G it provides the optimal path
with cost 6.
Complete: A* algorithm is complete as long as:
• Branching factor is finite.
• Cost at every action is fixed.
Optimal: A* search algorithm is optimal if it follows below two conditions:
Admissible: the first condition requires for optimality is that h(n) should be an
admissible heuristic for A* tree search. An admissible heuristic is
optimistic in nature.
Consistency: Second required condition is consistency for only A*
graph-search.
• If the heuristic function is admissible, then A* tree search will always find
the least cost path.
Time Complexity: The time complexity of A* search algorithm depends on
heuristic function, and the number of nodes expanded is exponential to
the depth of solution d. So the time complexity is O(b^d), where b is the
branching factor.
Space Complexity: The space complexity of A* search algorithm is O(b^d)
 Comparision
GBFS A*
Completeness N Y
Optimality N Y
Time Complexity O(b^m)
O(b^m)

Space complexity O(b^m) O(b^m)

8 puzzle using A*
• A* uses a combination of heuristic value (h-score: how
far the goal node is) as well as the g-score (i.e. the
number of nodes traversed from the start node to
current node).
• In our 8-Puzzle problem, we can define the h-score as
the number of misplaced tiles by comparing the
current state and the goal state or summation of the
Manhattan distance between misplaced nodes.
g-score will remain as the number of nodes traversed
from a start node to get to the current node.
Thank You!!!!