www.edubuzz360.

com

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CS8691 –ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

VI SEMESTER CSE

2017 Regulations

UNIT-II

(2) SEARCHING TECHNIQUES

UNIT II PROBLEM SOLVING METHODS 9
Problem solving Methods - Search Strategies- Uninformed - Informed - Heuristics -
Local Search Algorithms and Optimization Problems - Searching with Partial
Observations – Constraint Satisfaction Problems – Constraint Propagation -
Backtracking Search - Game Playing – Optimal Decisions in Games – Alpha - Beta
Pruning - Stochastic Games

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.0 Problem Solving by Search

An important aspect of intelligence is goal-based problem solving.
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.

A well-defined problem can be described by:

 Initial state
 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
 Path - sequence through state space
 Path cost - 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
What is Search?
Search is the systematic examination of states to find path from the start/root state to the goal
state.
The set of possible states, together with operators defining their connectivity constitute the search
space.
The output of a search algorithm is a solution, that is, a path from the initial state to a state that
satisfies the goal test.
Problem-solving agents

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

A Problem solving agent is a goal-based agent . It decide what to do by finding sequence of

actions that lead to desirable states. The agent can adopt a goal and aim at satisfying it.
To illustrate the agent’s behavior ,let us take an example where our agent is in the city of
Arad,which is in Romania. The agent has to adopt a goal of getting to Bucharest.

Goal formulation,based on the current situation and the agent’s performance measure,is the first
step in problem solving.
The agent’s task is to find out which sequence of actions will get to a goal state.

Problem formulation is the process of deciding what actions and states to consider given a goal.

Example: Route finding problem

Referring to figure 1.19
On holiday in Romania : currently in Arad.
Flight leaves tomorrow from Bucharest
Formulate goal: be in Bucharest

Formulate problem:
states: various cities
actions: drive between cities

Find solution:
sequence of cities, e.g., Arad, Sibiu, Fagaras, Bucharest
Problem formulation
A problem is defined by four items:
initial state e.g., “at Arad"
successor function S(x) = set of action-state pairs
e.g., S(Arad) = {[Arad -> Zerind;Zerind],….}
goal test, can be
explicit, e.g., x = at Bucharest"
implicit, e.g., NoDirt(x)
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.

Figure 1.17 Goal formulation and problem formulation

Search
An agent with several immediate options of unknown value can decide what to do by examining
different possible sequences of actions that leads to the states of known value,and then choosing the
best sequence. The process of looking for sequences actions from the current state to reach the goal
state is called search.
The search algorithm takes a problem as input and returns a solution in the form of action
sequence. Once a solution is found,the execution phase consists of carrying out the recommended
action..

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 1.18 shows a simple “formulate,search,execute” design for the agent. Once solution has been
executed,the agent will formulate a new goal.

function SIMPLE-PROBLEM-SOLVING-AGENT( percept) returns an action

inputs : percept, a percept
static: seq, an action sequence, initially empty
state, some description of the current world state
goal, a goal, initially null
problem, a problem formulation
state UPDATE-STATE(state, percept)
if seq is empty then do
goal FORMULATE-GOAL(state)
problem FORMULATE-PROBLEM(state, goal)
seq SEARCH( problem)
action FIRST(seq);
seq REST(seq)
return action
Figure 1.18 A Simple problem solving agent. It first formulates a goal and a
problem,searches for a sequence of actions that would solve a problem,and executes the actions
one at a time.
 The agent design assumes the Environment is
• Static : The entire process carried out without paying attention to changes that
might be occurring in the environment.
• Observable : The initial state is known and the agent’s sensor detects all aspects that
are relevant to the choice of action
• Discrete : With respect to the state of the environment and percepts and actions so
that alternate courses of action can be taken
• Deterministic : The next state of the environment is completely determined by the
current state and the actions executed by the agent. Solutions to the problem are
single sequence of actions
An agent carries out its plan with eye closed. This is called an open loop system because ignoring
the percepts breaks the loop between the agent and the environment.

2.0.1 Well-defined problems and solutions

A problem can be formally defined by four components:
 The initial state that the agent starts in . The initial state for our agent of example problem is
described by In(Arad)
 A Successor Function returns the possible actions available to the agent. Given a state
x,SUCCESSOR-FN(x) returns a set of {action,successor} ordered pairs where each action is
one of the legal actions in state x,and each successor is a state that can be reached from x by
applying the action.
For example,from the state In(Arad),the successor function for the Romania problem would
return
{ [Go(Sibiu),In(Sibiu)],[Go(Timisoara),In(Timisoara)],[Go(Zerind),In(Zerind)] }

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

 State Space : The set of all states reachable from the initial state. The state space forms a
graph in which the nodes are states and the arcs between nodes are actions.
 A path in the state space is a sequence of states connected by a sequence of actions.
 Thr goal test determines whether the given state is a goal state.

 A path cost function assigns numeric cost to each action. For the Romania problem the cost
of path might be its length in kilometers.
 The step cost of taking action a to go from state x to state y is denoted by c(x,a,y). The step
cost for Romania are shown in figure 1.18. It is assumed that the step costs are non negative.
 A solution to the problem is a path from the initial state to a goal state.
 An optimal solution has the lowest path cost among all solutions.

Figure 1.19 A simplified Road Map of part of Romania

2.0.2 EXAMPLE PROBLEMS

The problem solving approach has been applied to a vast array of task environments. Some
best known problems are summarized below. They are distinguished as toy or real-world
problems
A toy problem is intended to illustrate various problem solving methods. It can be easily
used by different researchers to compare the performance of algorithms.
A real world problem is one whose solutions people actually care about.

2.0.2.1 TOY PROBLEMS

Vacuum World Example

o States: The agent is in one of two locations.,each of which might or might not contain dirt.
Thus there are 2 x 22 = 8 possible world states.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

o Initial state: Any state can be designated as initial state.

o Successor function : This generates the legal states that results from trying the three actions
(left, right, suck). The complete state space is shown in figure 2.3
o Goal Test : This tests whether all the squares are clean.
o Path test : Each step costs one ,so that the the path cost is the number of steps in the path.

Vacuum World State Space

Figure 1.20 The state space for the vacuum world.

Arcs denote actions: L = Left,R = Right,S = Suck

The 8-puzzle
An 8-puzzle consists of a 3x3 board with eight numbered tiles and a blank space. A tile adjacent to
the balank space can slide into the space. The object is to reach the goal state ,as shown in figure 2.4
Example: The 8-puzzle

Figure 1.21 A typical instance of 8-puzzle.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

The problem formulation is as follows :

o States : A state description specifies the location of each of the eight tiles and the blank in
one of the nine squares.
o Initial state : Any state can be designated as the initial state. It can be noted that any given
goal can be reached from exactly half of the possible initial states.
o Successor function : This generates the legal states that result from trying the four
actions(blank moves Left,Right,Up or down).
o Goal Test : This checks whether the state matches the goal configuration shown in figure
2.4.(Other goal configurations are possible)
o Path cost : Each step costs 1,so the path cost is the number of steps in the path.
o
The 8-puzzle belongs to the family of sliding-block puzzles,which are often used as test
problems for new search algorithms in AI. This general class is known as NP-complete.
The 8-puzzle has 9!/2 = 181,440 reachable states and is easily solved.
The 15 puzzle ( 4 x 4 board ) has around 1.3 trillion states,an the random instances can be
solved optimally in few milli seconds by the best search algorithms.
The 24-puzzle (on a 5 x 5 board) has around 1025 states ,and random instances are still quite
difficult to solve optimally with current machines and algorithms.

8-queens problem
The goal of 8-queens problem is to place 8 queens on the chessboard such that no queen
attacks any other.(A queen attacks any piece in the same row,column or diagonal).
Figure 2.5 shows an attempted solution that fails: the queen in the right most column is
attacked by the queen at the top left.
An Incremental formulation involves operators that augments the state description,starting
with an empty state.for 8-queens problem,this means each action adds a queen to the state.
A complete-state formulation starts with all 8 queens on the board and move them around.
In either case the path cost is of no interest because only the final state counts.

Figure 1.22 8-queens problem

The first incremental formulation one might try is the following :

o States : Any arrangement of 0 to 8 queens on board is a state.
o Initial state : No queen on the board.
o Successor function : Add a queen to any empty square.
o Goal Test : 8 queens are on the board,none attacked.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

In this formulation,we have 64.63…57 = 3 x 1014 possible sequences to investigate.

A better formulation would prohibit placing a queen in any square that is already attacked.
:
o States : Arrangements of n queens ( 0 <= n < = 8 ) ,one per column in the left most columns
,with no queen attacking another are states.
o Successor function : Add a queen to any square in the left most empty column such that it
is not attacked by any other queen.
This formulation reduces the 8-queen state space from 3 x 1014 to just 2057,and solutions are
easy to find.
For the 100 queens the initial formulation has roughly 10400 states whereas the improved
formulation has about 1052 states. This is a huge reduction,but the improved state space is still
too big for the algorithms to handle.

2.0.1 REAL-WORLD PROBLEMS

ROUTE-FINDING PROBLEM
Route-finding problem is defined in terms of specified locations and transitions along links
between them. Route-finding algorithms are used in a variety of applications,such as routing in
computer networks,military operations planning,and air line travel planning systems.

AIRLINE TRAVEL PROBLEM

The airline travel problem is specifies as follows :
o States : Each is represented by a location(e.g.,an airport) and the current time.
o Initial state : This is specified by the problem.
o Successor function : This returns the states resulting from taking any scheduled
flight(further specified by seat class and location),leaving later than the current time plus
the within-airport transit time,from the current airport to another.
o Goal Test : Are we at the destination by some prespecified time?
o Path cost : This depends upon the monetary cost,waiting time,flight time,customs and
immigration procedures,seat quality,time of dat,type of air plane,frequent-flyer mileage
awards, and so on.

TOURING PROBLEMS
Touring problems are closely related to route-finding problems,but with an important difference.
Consider for example,the problem,”Visit every city at least once” as shown in Romania map.
As with route-finding the actions correspond to trips between adjacent cities. The state space,
however,is quite different.
The initial state would be “In Bucharest; visited{Bucharest}”.
A typical intermediate state would be “In Vaslui;visited {Bucharest,Urziceni,Vaslui}”.
The goal test would check whether the agent is in Bucharest and all 20 cities have been visited.

THE TRAVELLING SALESPERSON PROBLEM(TSP)

Is a touring problem in which each city must be visited exactly once. The aim is to find the
shortest tour.The problem is known to be NP-hard. Enormous efforts have been expended to
improve the capabilities of TSP algorithms. These algorithms are also used in tasks such as
planning movements of automatic circuit-board drills and of stocking machines on shop
floors.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

VLSI layout
A VLSI layout problem requires positioning millions of components and connections on a chip
to minimize area ,minimize circuit delays,minimize stray capacitances,and maximize
manufacturing yield. The layout problem is split into two parts : cell layout and channel
routing.

ROBOT navigation
ROBOT navigation is a generalization of the route-finding problem. Rather than a discrete set
of routes,a robot can move in a continuous space with an infinite set of possible actions and
states. For a circular Robot moving on a flat surface,the space is essentially two-dimensional.
When the robot has arms and legs or wheels that also must be controlled,the search space
becomes multi-dimensional. Advanced techniques are required to make the search space finite.

AUTOMATIC ASSEMBLY SEQUENCING

The example includes assembly of intricate objects such as electric motors. The aim in assembly
problems is to find the order in which to assemble the parts of some objects. If the wrong order
is choosen,there will be no way to add some part later without undoing somework already done.
Another important assembly problem is protein design,in which the goal is to find a sequence of
Amino acids that will be fold into a three-dimensional protein with the right properties to cure
some disease.

INTERNET SEARCHING
In recent years there has been increased demand for software robots that perform Internet
searching.,looking for answers to questions,for related information,or for shopping deals. The
searching techniques consider internet as a graph of nodes(pages) connected by links.

2.0.2 SEARCHING FOR SOLUTIONS

SEARCH TREE
Having formulated some problems,we now need to solve them. This is done by a search through
the state space. A search tree is generated by the initial state and the successor function that
together define the state space. In general,we may have a search graph rather than a search
tree,when the same state can be reached from multiple paths.

Figure 1.23 shows some of the expansions in the search tree for finding a route from Arad to
Bucharest.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 1.23 Partial search trees for finding a route from Arad to Bucharest. Nodes that have
been expanded are shaded.; nodes that have been generated but not yet expanded are outlined in
bold;nodes that have not yet been generated are shown in faint dashed line

The root of the search tree is a search node corresponding to the initial state,In(Arad). The first
step is to test whether this is a goal state. The current state is expanded by applying the successor
function to the current state,thereby generating a new set of states. In this case,we get three new
states: In(Sibiu),In(Timisoara),and In(Zerind). Now we must choose which of these three
possibilities to consider further. This is the essense of search- following up one option now and
putting the others aside for latter,in case the first choice does not lead to a solution.
Search strategy . The general tree-search algorithm is described informally in Figure 1.24
.
Tree Search

Figure 1.24 An informal description of the general tree-search algorithm

The choice of which state to expand is determined by the search strategy. There are an infinite
number paths in this state space ,so the search tree has an infinite number of nodes.
A node is a data structure with five components :
o STATE : a state in the state space to which the node corresponds;
o PARENT-NODE : the node in the search tree that generated this node;
o ACTION : the action that was applied to the parent to generate the node;
o PATH-COST :the cost,denoted by g(n),of the path from initial state to the node,as
indicated by the parent pointers; and
o DEPTH : the number of steps along the path from the initial state.
It is important to remember the distinction between nodes and states. A node is a book keeping
data structure used to represent the search tree. A state corresponds to configuration of the world.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 1.25 Nodes are data structures from which the search tree is
constructed. Each has a parent,a state, Arrows point from child to parent.

Fringe
Fringe is a collection of nodes that have been generated but not yet been expanded. Each element
of the fringe is a leaf node,that is,a node with no successors in the tree. The fringe of each tree
consists of those nodes with bold outlines.
The collection of these nodes is implemented as a queue.
The general tree search algorithm is shown in Figure 2.9

Figure 1.26 The general Tree search algorithm

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

The operations specified in Figure 1.26 on a queue are as follows:

o MAKE-QUEUE(element,…) creates a queue with the given element(s).
o EMPTY?(queue) returns true only if there are no more elements in the queue.
o FIRST(queue) returns FIRST(queue) and removes it from the queue.
o INSERT(element,queue) inserts an element into the queue and returns the resulting
queue.
o INSERT-ALL(elements,queue) inserts a set of elements into the queue and returns the
resulting queue.

MEASURING PROBLEM-SOLVING PERFORMANCE

The output of problem-solving algorithm is either failure or a solution.(Some algorithms might
struck in an infinite loop and never return an output.
The algorithm’s performance can be measured in four ways :
o Completeness : Is the algorithm guaranteed to find a solution when there is one?
o Optimality : Does the strategy find the optimal solution
o Time complexity : How long does it take to find a solution?
o Space complexity : How much memory is needed to perform the search?
2.0.3 UNINFORMED SEARCH STRATGES

Uninformed Search Strategies have no additional information about states beyond that provided
in the problem definition.
Strategies that know whether one non goal state is “more promising” than another are called
Informed search or heuristic search strategies.

There are five uninformed search strategies as given below.

o Breadth-first search
o Uniform-cost search
o Depth-first search
o Depth-limited search
o Iterative deepening search

2.3.4.1 Breadth-first search

Breadth-first search is a simple strategy in which the root node is expanded first,then all
successors of the root node are expanded next,then their successors,and so on. In general,all the
nodes are expanded at a given depth in the search tree before any nodes at the next level are
expanded.
Breath-first-search is implemented by calling TREE-SEARCH with an empty fringe that is a
first-in-first-out(FIFO) queue,assuring that the nodes that are visited first will be expanded first.
In otherwards,calling TREE-SEARCH(problem,FIFO-QUEUE()) results in breadth-first-search.
The FIFO queue puts all newly generated successors at the end of the queue,which means that
Shallow nodes are expanded before deeper nodes.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 1.27 Breadth-first search on a simple binary tree. At each stage ,the node to be expanded next
is indicated by a marker.

Properties of breadth-first-search

Figure 1.28 Breadth-first-search properties

Figure 1.29 Time and memory requirements for breadth-first-search.

The numbers shown assume branch factor of b = 10 ; 10,000
nodes/second; 1000 bytes/node
Time complexity for BFS
Assume every state has b successors. The root of the search tree generates b nodes at the first
level,each of which generates b more nodes,for a total of b2 at the second level. Each of these
generates b more nodes,yielding b3 nodes at the third level,and so on. Now suppose,that the

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

solution is at depth d. In the worst case,we would expand all but the last node at level
d,generating bd+1 - b nodes at level d+1.
Then the total number of nodes generated is
b + b2 + b3 + …+ bd + ( bd+1 + b) = O(bd+1).
Every node that is generated must remain in memory,because it is either part of the fringe or is an
ancestor of a fringe node. The space compleity is,therefore ,the same as the time complexity

2.3.4.2 UNIFORM-COST SEARCH

Instead of expanding the shallowest node,uniform-cost search expands the node n with the
lowest path cost. uniform-cost search does not care about the number of steps a path has,but only
about their total cost.

Figure 1.30 Properties of Uniform-cost-search

2.5.1.3 DEPTH-FIRST-SEARCH

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Depth-first-search always expands the deepest node in the current fringe of the search tree. The
progress of the search is illustrated in figure 1.31. The search proceeds immediately to the
deepest level of the search tree,where the nodes have no successors. As those nodes are
expanded,they are dropped from the fringe,so then the search “backs up” to the next shallowest
node that still has unexplored successors.

Figure 1.31 Depth-first-search on a binary tree. Nodes that have been expanded and have no
descendants in the fringe can be removed from the memory;these are shown in black. Nodes at
depth 3 are assumed to have no successors and M is the only goal node.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

This strategy can be implemented by TREE-SEARCH with a last-in-first-out (LIFO) queue,also

known as a stack.

Depth-first-search has very modest memory requirements.It needs to store only a single path
from the root to a leaf node,along with the remaining unexpanded sibling nodes for each node on
the path. Once the node has been expanded,it can be removed from the memory,as soon as its
descendants have been fully explored(Refer Figure 2.12).
For a state space with a branching factor b and maximum depth m,depth-first-search requires
storage of only bm + 1 nodes.

Using the same assumptions as Figure 2.11,and assuming that nodes at the same depth as the goal
node have no successors,we find the depth-first-search would require 118 kilobytes instead of 10
petabytes,a factor of 10 billion times less space.

Drawback of Depth-first-search
The drawback of depth-first-search is that it can make a wrong choice and get stuck going down
very long(or even infinite) path when a different choice would lead to solution near the root of the
search tree. For example ,depth-first-search will explore the entire left subtree even if node C is a
goal node.

BACKTRACKING SEARCH
A variant of depth-first search called backtracking search uses less memory and only one successor
is generated at a time rather than all successors.; Only O(m) memory is needed rather than O(bm)

2.3.4.4 DEPTH-LIMITED-SEARCH
The problem of unbounded trees can be alleviated by supplying depth-first-search with a pre-
determined depth limit l.That is,nodes at depth l are treated as if they have no successors. This
approach is called depth-limited-search. The depth limit soves the infinite path problem.
Depth limited search will be nonoptimal if we choose l > d. Its time complexity is O(bl) and its
space compleiy is O(bl). Depth-first-search can be viewed as a special case of depth-limited search
with l = oo
Sometimes,depth limits can be based on knowledge of the problem. For,example,on the map of
Romania there are 20 cities. Therefore,we know that if there is a solution.,it must be of length 19 at
the longest,So l = 10 is a possible choice. However,it oocan be shown that any city can be reached
from any other city in at most 9 steps. This number known as the diameter of the state space,gives
us a better depth limit.
Depth-limited-search can be implemented as a simple modification to the general tree-search
algorithm or to the recursive depth-first-search algorithm. The pseudocode for recursive depth-
limited-search is shown in Figure 1.32.
It can be noted that the above algorithm can terminate with two kinds of failure : the standard
failure value indicates no solution; the cutoff value indicates no solution within the depth limit.
Depth-limited search = depth-first search with depth limit l,
returns cut off if any path is cut off by depth limit

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

function Depth-Limited-Search( problem, limit) returns a solution/fail/cutoff

return Recursive-DLS(Make-Node(Initial-State[problem]), problem, limit)
function Recursive-DLS(node, problem, limit) returns solution/fail/cutoff
cutoff-occurred? false
if Goal-Test(problem,State[node]) then return Solution(node)
else if Depth[node] = limit then return cutoff
else for each successor in Expand(node, problem) do
result Recursive-DLS(successor, problem, limit)
if result = cutoff then cutoff_occurred? true
else if result not = failure then return result
if cutoff_occurred? then return cutoff else return failure
Figure 1.32 Recursive implementation of Depth-limited-search:

2.3.4.5 ITERATIVE DEEPENING DEPTH-FIRST SEARCH

Iterative deepening search (or iterative-deepening-depth-first-search) is a general strategy often
used in combination with depth-first-search,that finds the better depth limit. It does this by
gradually increasing the limit – first 0,then 1,then 2, and so on – until a goal is found. This will
occur when the depth limit reaches d,the depth of the shallowest goal node. The algorithm is shown
in Figure 2.14.
Iterative deepening combines the benefits of depth-first and breadth-first-search
Like depth-first-search,its memory requirements are modest;O(bd) to be precise.
Like Breadth-first-search,it is complete when the branching factor is finite and optimal when the
path cost is a non decreasing function of the depth of the node.
Figure 2.15 shows the four iterations of ITERATIVE-DEEPENING_SEARCH on a binary search
tree,where the solution is found on the fourth iteration.

Figure 1.33 The iterative deepening search algorithm ,which repeatedly applies depth-limited-
search with increasing limits. It terminates when a solution is found or if the depth limited search
resturns failure,meaning that no solution exists.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 1.34 Four iterations of iterative deepening search on a binary tree

Iterative search is not as wasteful as it might seem

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Iterative deepening search

S S
S

Limit = 0 A D
Limit = 1

S S S
A D A D

B D A E
Limit = 2

Figure 1.35

Iterative search is not as wasteful as it might seem

Properties of iterative deepening search

Figure 1.36

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

In general,iterative deepening is the prefered uninformed search method when there is a

large search space and the depth of solution is not known.
1.3.4.6 Bidirectional Search
The idea behind bidirectional search is to run two simultaneous searches –
one forward from he initial state and
the other backward from the goal,
stopping when the two searches meet in the middle (Figure 1.37)
The motivation is that bd/2 + bd/2 much less than ,or in the figure ,the area of the two small circles
is less than the area of one big circle centered on the start and reaching to the goal.

Figure 1.37 A schematic view of a bidirectional search that is about to succeed,when a

Branch from the Start node meets a Branch from the goal node.

1.3.4.7 Comparing Uninformed Search Strategies

Figure 1.38 compares search strategies in terms of the four evaluation criteria .

Figure 1.38 Evaluation of search strategies,b is the branching factor; d is the depth of the
shallowest solution; m is the maximum depth of the search tree; l is the depth limit. Superscript
caveats are as follows: a complete if b is finite; b complete if step costs >= E for positive E; c
optimal if step costs are all identical; d if both directions use breadth-first search.

2.3.2 AVOIDING REPEATED STATES

In searching,time is wasted by expanding states that have already been encountered and
expanded before. For some problems repeated states are unavoidable. The search trees for these
problems are infinite. If we prune some of the repeated states,we can cut the search tree down to
finite size. Considering search tree upto a fixed depth,eliminating repeated states yields an
exponential reduction in search cost.
Repeated states ,can cause a solvable problem to become unsolvable if the algorithm does not detect
them.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Repeated states can be the source of great inefficiency: identical sub trees will be explored many
times!
A A
B B B

C C C C C

Figure 1.39

Figure 1.40

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 1.41 The General graph search algorithm. The set closed can be implemented with a hash
table to allow efficient checking for repeated states.

Do not return to the previous state.

• Do not create paths with cycles.
• Do not generate the same state twice.
- Store states in a hash table.

- Check for repeated states.

o Using more memory in order to check repeated state
o Algorithms that forget their history are doomed to repeat it.
o Maintain Close-List beside Open-List(fringe)
Strategies for avoiding repeated states
We can modify the general TREE-SEARCH algorithm to include the data structure called the
closed list ,which stores every expanded node. The fringe of unexpanded nodes is called the open
list.
If the current node matches a node on the closed list,it is discarded instead of being expanded.
The new algorithm is called GRAPH-SEARCH and much more efficient than TREE-SEARCH. The
worst case time and space requirements may be much smaller than O(bd).

2.3.2 SEARCHING WITH PARTIAL INFORMATION

o Different types of incompleteness lead to three distinct problem types:
o Sensorless problems (conformant): If the agent has no sensors at all
o Contingency problem: if the environment if partially observable or if
action are uncertain (adversarial)
o Exploration problems: When the states and actions of the environment
are unknown.

o No sensor
o Initial State(1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8)
o After action [Right] the state (2,4,6,8)
o After action [Suck] the state (4, 8)
o After action [Left] the state (3,7)
o After action [Suck] the state (8)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

o Answer : [Right,Suck,Left,Suck] coerce the world into state 7 without any

sensor
o Belief State: Such state that agent belief to be there

(SLIDE 7) Partial knowledge of states and actions:

– sensorless or conformant problem
– Agent may have no idea where it is; solution (if any) is a sequence.
– contingency problem
– Percepts provide new information about current state; solution is a tree or
policy; often interleave search and execution.
– If uncertainty is caused by actions of another agent: adversarial problem
– exploration problem
– When states and actions of the environment are unknown.

Figure

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure

Contingency, start in {1,3}.

Murphy’s law, Suck can dirty a clean carpet.
Local sensing: dirt, location only.
– Percept = [L,Dirty] ={1,3}
– [Suck] = {5,7}
– [Right] ={6,8}
– [Suck] in {6}={8} (Success)
– BUT [Suck] in {8} = failure
Solution??
– Belief-state: no fixed action sequence guarantees solution
Relax requirement:
– [Suck, Right, if [R,dirty] then Suck]
– Select actions based on contingencies arising during execution.

Time and space complexity are always considered with respect to some measure of the problem
difficulty. In theoretical computer science ,the typical measure is the size of the state space.
In AI,where the graph is represented implicitly by the initial state and successor function,the
complexity is expressed in terms of three quantities:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

b,the branching factor or maximum number of successors of any node;

d,the depth of the shallowest goal node; and
m,the maximum length of any path in the state space.

Search-cost - typically depends upon the time complexity but can also include the term for
memory usage.
Total–cost – It combines the search-cost and the path cost of the solution found.

2.1 INFORMED SEARCH AND EXPLORATION

2.1.1 Informed(Heuristic) Search Strategies

2.1.2 Heuristic Functions
2.1.3 Local Search Algorithms and Optimization Problems
2.1.4 Local Search in Continuous Spaces
2.1.5 Online Search Agents and Unknown Environments

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.2 CONSTRAINT SATISFACTION PROBLEMS(CSP)

2.2.1 Constraint Satisfaction Problems
2.2.2 Backtracking Search for CSPs
2.2.3 The Structure of Problems

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

2.3 ADVERSARIAL SEARCH

2.3.1 Games
2.3.2 Optimal Decisions in Games
2.3.3 Alpha-Beta Pruning
2.3.4 Imperfect ,Real-time Decisions
2.3.5 Games that include Element of Chance

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1 INFORMED SEARCH AND EXPLORATION

2.1.1 Informed(Heuristic) Search Strategies

Informed search strategy is one that uses problem-specific knowledge beyond the definition
of the problem itself. It can find solutions more efficiently than uninformed strategy.
Best-first search
Best-first search is an instance of general TREE-SEARCH or GRAPH-SEARCH algorithm in
which a node is selected for expansion based on an evaluation function f(n). The node with lowest
evaluation is selected for expansion,because the evaluation measures the distance to the goal.
This can be implemented using a priority-queue,a data structure that will maintain the fringe in
ascending order of f-values.
2.1.2. Heuristic functions
A heuristic function or simply a heuristic is a function that ranks alternatives in various
search algorithms at each branching step basing on an available information in order to make a
decision which branch is to be followed during a search.

The key component of Best-first search algorithm is a heuristic function,denoted by h(n):

h(n) = extimated cost of the cheapest path from node n to a goal node.

For example,in Romania,one might estimate the cost of the cheapest path from Arad to Bucharest
via a straight-line distance from Arad to Bucharest(Figure 2.1).
Heuristic function are the most common form in which additional knowledge is imparted to the
search algorithm.
Greedy Best-first search
Greedy best-first search tries to expand the node that is closest to the goal,on the grounds that
this is likely to a solution quickly.
It evaluates the nodes by using the heuristic function f(n) = h(n).
Taking the example of Route-finding problems in Romania , the goal is to reach Bucharest starting
from the city Arad. We need to know the straight-line distances to Bucharest from various cities as
shown in Figure 2.1. For example, the initial state is In(Arad) ,and the straight line distance
heuristic hSLD(In(Arad)) is found to be 366.
Using the straight-line distance heuristic hSLD ,the goal state can be reached faster.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 2.1 Values of hSLD - straight line distances to Bucharest

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 2.2 stages in greedy best-first search for Bucharest using straight-line distance heuristic
hSLD. Nodes are labeled with their h-values.

Figure 2.2 shows the progress of greedy best-first search using hSLD to find a path from Arad to
Bucharest. The first node to be expanded from Arad will be Sibiu,because it is closer to Bucharest
than either Zerind or Timisoara. The next node to be expanded will be Fagaras,because it is closest.
Fagaras in turn generates Bucharest,which is the goal.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Properties of greedy search

o Complete?? No–can get stuck in loops, e.g.,

Iasi ! Neamt ! Iasi ! Neamt !
Complete in finite space with repeated-state checking
o Time?? O(bm), but a good heuristic can give dramatic improvement
o Space?? O(bm)—keeps all nodes in memory
o Optimal?? No

Greedy best-first search is not optimal,and it is incomplete.

The worst-case time and space complexity is O(bm),where m is the maximum depth of the search
space.

A* Search
A* Search is the most widely used form of best-first search. The evaluation function f(n) is
obtained by combining
(1) g(n) = the cost to reach the node,and
(2) h(n) = the cost to get from the node to the goal :
f(n) = g(n) + h(n).
A* Search is both optimal and complete. A* is optimal if h(n) is an admissible heuristic. The obvious
example of admissible heuristic is the straight-line distance hSLD. It cannot be an overestimate.
A* Search is optimal if h(n) is an admissible heuristic – that is,provided that h(n) never
overestimates the cost to reach the goal.
An obvious example of an admissible heuristic is the straight-line distance hSLD that we used in
getting to Bucharest. The progress of an A* tree search for Bucharest is shown in Figure 2.2.
The values of ‘g ‘ are computed from the step costs shown in the Romania map( figure 2.1). Also
the values of hSLD are given in Figure 2.1.

Recursive Best-first Search(RBFS)

Recursive best-first search is a simple recursive algorithm that attempts to mimic the operation of
standard best-first search,but using only linear space. The algorithm is shown in figure 2.4.
Its structure is similar to that of recursive depth-first search,but rather than continuing indefinitely
down the current path,it keeps track of the f-value of the best alternative path available from any
ancestor of the current node. If the current node exceeds this limit,the recursion unwinds back to the
alternative path. As the recursion unwinds,RBFS replaces the f-value of each node along the path
with the best f-value of its children.
Figure 2.5 shows how RBFS reaches Bucharest.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 2.3 Stages in A* Search for Bucharest. Nodes are labeled with f = g + h . The h-values are
the straight-line distances to Bucharest taken from figure 2.1

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

function RECURSIVE-BEST-FIRST-SEARCH(problem) return a solution or failure

return RFBS(problem,MAKE-NODE(INITIAL-STATE[problem]),∞)

function RFBS( problem, node, f_limit) return a solution or failure and a new f-
cost limit
if GOAL-TEST[problem](STATE[node]) then return node
successors  EXPAND(node, problem)
if successors is empty then return failure, ∞
for each s in successors do
f [s]  max(g(s) + h(s), f [node])
repeat
best  the lowest f-value node in successors
if f [best] > f_limit then return failure, f [best]
alternative  the second lowest f-value among successors
result, f [best]  RBFS(problem, best, min(f_limit, alternative))
if result  failure then return result
Figure 2.4 The algorithm for recursive best-first search

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 2.5 Stages in an RBFS search for the shortest route to Bucharest. The f-limit value for each
recursive call is shown on top of each current node. (a) The path via Rimnicu Vilcea is followed
until the current best leaf (Pitesti) has a value that is worse than the best alternative path (Fagaras).
(b) The recursion unwinds and the best leaf value of the forgotten subtree (417) is backed up to
Rimnicu Vilcea;then Fagaras is expanded,revealing a best leaf value of 450.
(c) The recursion unwinds and the best leaf value of the forgotten subtree (450) is backed upto
Fagaras; then Rimni Vicea is expanded. This time because the best alternative path(through
Timisoara) costs atleast 447,the expansion continues to Bucharest

RBFS Evaluation :
RBFS is a bit more efficient than IDA*
– Still excessive node generation (mind changes)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Like A*, optimal if h(n) is admissible

Space complexity is O(bd).
– IDA* retains only one single number (the current f-cost limit)
Time complexity difficult to characterize
– Depends on accuracy if h(n) and how often best path changes.
IDA* en RBFS suffer from too little memory.

2.1.2 Heuristic Functions

A heuristic function or simply a heuristic is a function that ranks alternatives in various search
algorithms at each branching step basing on an available information in order to make a decision
which branch is to be followed during a search

Figure 2.6 A typical instance of the 8-puzzle.

The solution is 26 steps long.

The 8-puzzle
The 8-puzzle is an example of Heuristic search problem. The object of the puzzle is to slide the tiles
horizontally or vertically into the empty space until the configuration matches the goal
configuration(Figure 2.6)
The average cost for a randomly generated 8-puzzle instance is about 22 steps. The branching factor
is about 3.(When the empty tile is in the middle,there are four possible moves;when it is in the
corner there are two;and when it is along an edge there are three). This means that an exhaustive
search to depth 22 would look at about 322 approximately = 3.1 X 1010 states.
By keeping track of repeated states,we could cut this down by a factor of about 170,000,because
there are only 9!/2 = 181,440 distinct states that are reachable. This is a manageable number ,but the
corresponding number for the 15-puzzle is roughly 1013.
If we want to find the shortest solutions by using A*,we need a heuristic function that never
overestimates the number of steps to the goal.
The two commonly used heuristic functions for the 15-puzzle are :
(1) h1 = the number of misplaced tiles.
For figure 2.6 ,all of the eight tiles are out of position,so the start state would have h1 = 8. h1 is an
admissible heuristic.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

(2) h2 = the sum of the distances of the tiles from their goal positions. This is called the city
block distance or Manhattan distance.
h2 is admissible ,because all any move can do is move one tile one step closer to the goal.
Tiles 1 to 8 in start state give a Manhattan distance of
h2 = 3 + 1 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 3 + 3 + 2 = 18.

Neither of these overestimates the true solution cost ,which is 26.

The Effective Branching factor

One way to characterize the quality of a heuristic is the effective branching factor b*. If the total
number of nodes generated by A* for a particular problem is N,and the solution depth is d,then b*
is the branching factor that a uniform tree of depth d would have to have in order to contain N+1
nodes. Thus,
N + 1 = 1 + b* + (b*)2+…+(b*)d
For example,if A* finds a solution at depth 5 using 52 nodes,then effective branching factor is 1.92.
A well designed heuristic would have a value of b* close to 1,allowing failru large problems to be
solved.
To test the heuristic functions h1 and h2,1200 random problems were generated with solution lengths
from 2 to 24 and solved them with iterative deepening search and with A* search using both h1 and
h2. Figure 2.7 gives the averaghe number of nodes expanded by each strategy and the effective
branching factor.
The results suggest that h2 is better than h1,and is far better than using iterative deepening search.
For a solution length of 14,A* with h2 is 30,000 times more efficient than uninformed iterative
deepening search.

Figure 2.7 Comparison of search costs and effective branching factors for the ITERATIVE-
DEEPENING-SEARCH and A* Algorithms with h1,and h2. Data are average over 100 instances of
the 8-puzzle,for various solution lengths.

Inventing admissible heuristic functions

 Relaxed problems
o A problem with fewer restrictions on the actions is called a relaxed problem
o The cost of an optimal solution to a relaxed problem is an admissible heuristic for the
original problem
o If the rules of the 8-puzzle are relaxed so that a tile can move anywhere, then h1(n) gives the
shortest solution

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

o If the rules are relaxed so that a tile can move to any adjacent square, then h2(n) gives the
shortest solution

2.1.3 LOCAL SEARCH ALGORITHMS AND OPTIMIZATION

PROBLEMS
o In many optimization problems, the path to the goal is irrelevant; the goal state itself is the
solution
o For example,in the 8-queens problem,what matters is the final configuration of queens,not
the order in which they are added.

o In such cases, we can use local search algorithms. They operate using a single current
state(rather than multiple paths) and generally move only to neighbors of that state.
o The important applications of these class of problems are (a) integrated-circuit
design,(b)Factory-floor layout,(c) job-shop scheduling,(d)automatic
programming,(e)telecommunications network optimization,(f)Vehicle routing,and (g)
portfolio management.

Key advantages of Local Search Algorithms

(1) They use very little memory – usually a constant amount; and
(2) they can often find reasonable solutions in large or infinite(continuous) state spaces for which
systematic algorithms are unsuitable.

OPTIMIZATION PROBLEMS
Inaddition to finding goals,local search algorithms are useful for solving pure optimization
problems,in which the aim is to find the best state according to an objective function.

State Space Landscape

To understand local search,it is better explained using state space landscape as shown in figure
2.8.
A landscape has both “location” (defined by the state) and “elevation”(defined by the value of the
heuristic cost function or objective function).
If elevation corresponds to cost,then the aim is to find the lowest valley – a global minimum; if
elevation corresponds to an objective function,then the aim is to find the highest peak – a global
maximum.
Local search algorithms explore this landscape. A complete local search algorithm always finds a
goal if one exists; an optimal algorithm always finds a global minimum/maximum.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 2.8 A one dimensional state space landscape in which elevation corresponds to the
objective function. The aim is to find the global maximum. Hill climbing search modifies the
current state to try to improve it ,as shown by the arrow. The various topographic features are
defined in the text

Hill-climbing search
The hill-climbing search algorithm as shown in figure 2.9, is simply a loop that continually moves
in the direction of increasing value – that is,uphill. It terminates when it reaches a “peak” where no
neighbor has a higher value.

function HILL-CLIMBING( problem) return a state that is a local maximum

input: problem, a problem
local variables: current, a node.
neighbor, a node.

current  MAKE-NODE(INITIAL-STATE[problem])
loop do
neighbor  a highest valued successor of current
if VALUE [neighbor] ≤ VALUE[current] then return STATE[current]
current  neighbor

Figure 2.9 The hill-climbing search algorithm (steepest ascent version),which is the most basic
local search technique. At each step the current node is replaced by the best neighbor;the neighbor
with the highest VALUE. If the heuristic cost estimate h is used,we could find the neighbor with the
lowest h.

Hill-climbing is sometimes called greedy local search because it grabs a good neighbor state
without thinking ahead about where to go next. Greedy algorithms often perform quite well.
Problems with hill-climbing
Hill-climbing often gets stuck for the following reasons :
o Local maxima : a local maximum is a peak that is higher than each of its neighboring
states,but lower than the global maximum. Hill-climbing algorithms that reach the vicinity

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

of a local maximum will be drawn upwards towards the peak,but will then be stuck with
nowhere else to go
o Ridges : A ridge is shown in Figure 2.10. Ridges results in a sequence of local maxima that
is very difficult for greedy algorithms to navigate.
o Plateaux : A plateau is an area of the state space landscape where the evaluation function is
flat. It can be a flat local maximum,from which no uphill exit exists,or a shoulder,from
which it is possible to make progress.

Figure 2.10 Illustration of why ridges cause difficulties for hill-climbing. The grid of states(dark
circles) is superimposed on a ridge rising from left to right,creating a sequence of local maxima that
are not directly connected to each other. From each local maximum,all th available options point
downhill.

Hill-climbing variations
 Stochastic hill-climbing
o Random selection among the uphill moves.
o The selection probability can vary with the steepness of the uphill move.
 First-choice hill-climbing
o cfr. stochastic hill climbing by generating successors randomly until a better one is
found.
 Random-restart hill-climbing
o Tries to avoid getting stuck in local maxima.
Simulated annealing search
A hill-climbing algorithm that never makes “downhill” moves towards states with lower value(or
higher cost) is guaranteed to be incomplete,because it can stuck on a local maximum.In contrast,a
purely random walk –that is,moving to a successor choosen uniformly at random from the set of
successors – is complete,but extremely inefficient.
Simulated annealing is an algorithm that combines hill-climbing with a random walk in someway
that yields both efficiency and completeness.
Figure 2.11 shows simulated annealing algorithm. It is quite similar to hill climbing. Instead of
picking the best move,however,it picks the random move. If the move improves the situation,it is
always accepted. Otherwise,the algorithm accepts the move with some probability less than 1. The
probability decreases exponentially with the “badness” of the move – the amount E by which the
evaluation is worsened.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Simulated annealing was first used extensively to solve VLSI layout problems in the early 1980s. It
has been applied widely to factory scheduling and other large-scale optimization tasks.

Figure 2.11 The simulated annealing search algorithm,a version of stochastic hill climbing where
some downhill moves are allowed.

Genetic algorithms
A Genetic algorithm(or GA) is a variant of stochastic beam search in which successor states are
generated by combining two parent states,rather than by modifying a single state.
Like beam search,Gas begin with a set of k randomly generated states,called the population. Each
state,or individual,is represented as a string over a finite alphabet – most commonly,a string of 0s
and 1s. For example,an 8 8-quuens state must specify the positions of 8 queens,each in acolumn of
8 squares,and so requires 8 x log2 8 = 24 bits.

Figure 2.12 The genetic algorithm. The initial population in (a) is ranked by the fitness function in
(b),resulting in pairs for mating in (c). They produce offspring in (d),which are subjected to

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

mutation in (e).

Figure 2.12 shows a population of four 8-digit strings representing 8-queen states. The production
of the next generation of states is shown in Figure 2.12(b) to (e).
In (b) each state is rated by the evaluation function or the fitness function.
In (c),a random choice of two pairs is selected for reproduction,in accordance with the probabilities
in (b).
Figure 2.13 describes the algorithm that implements all these steps.

function GENETIC_ALGORITHM( population, FITNESS-FN) return an individual

input: population, a set of individuals
FITNESS-FN, a function which determines the quality of the individual
repeat
new_population  empty set
loop for i from 1 to SIZE(population) do
x  RANDOM_SELECTION(population, FITNESS_FN)
y  RANDOM_SELECTION(population, FITNESS_FN)
child  REPRODUCE(x,y)
if (small random probability) then child  MUTATE(child )
add child to new_population
population  new_population
until some individual is fit enough or enough time has elapsed
return the best individual
Figure 2.13 A genetic algorithm. The algorithm is same as the one diagrammed in Figure 2.12,with
one variation:each mating of two parents produces only one offspring,not two.

2.1.4 LOCAL SEARCH IN CONTINUOUS SPACES

 We have considered algorithms that work only in discrete environments,
but real-world environment are continuous
 Local search amounts to maximizing a continuous objective function
in a multi-dimensional vector space.
 This is hard to do in general.
 Can immediately retreat
o Discretize the space near each state
o Apply a discrete local search strategy (e.g., stochastic hill climbing,
simulated annealing)
 Often resists a closed-form solution
o Fake up an empirical gradient
o Amounts to greedy hill climbing in discretized state space
 Can employ Newton-Raphson Method to find maxima
 Continuous problems have similar problems: plateaus, ridges, local
maxima, etc.

2.1.5 Online Search Agents and Unknown Environments

Online search problems

 Offline Search (all algorithms so far)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

 Compute complete solution, ignoring environment Carry out

action sequence
 Online Search
 Interleave computation and action
 Compute—Act—Observe—Compute—·
 Online search good
 For dynamic, semi-dynamic, stochastic domains
 Whenever offline search would yield exponentially many contingencies
 Online search necessary for exploration problem
 States and actions unknown to agent
 Agent uses actions as experiments to determine what to do
Examples
Robot exploring unknown building
Classical hero escaping a labyrinth

 Assume agent knows

 Actions available in state s
Step-cost function c(s,a,s′)
State s is a goal state
 When it has visited a state s previously Admissible heuristic function
h(s )
 Note that agent doesn’t know outcome state (s ′ ) for a given action (a) until it tries the action
(and all actions from a state s )
 Competitive ratio compares actual cost with cost agent would follow if it knew the search
space
 No agent can avoid dead ends in all state spaces
 Robotics examples: Staircase, ramp, cliff, terrain
 Assume state space is safely explorable—some goal state is always reachable
Online Search Agents

 Interleaving planning and acting hamstrings offline search

 A* expands arbitrary nodes without waiting for outcome of action Online
algorithm can expand only the node it physically occupies Best to explore
nodes in physically local order
 Suggests using depth-first search
 Next node always a child of the current
 When all actions have been tried, can’t just drop state
Agent must physically backtrack
 Online Depth-First Search
 May have arbitrarily bad competitive ratio (wandering past goal) Okay for
exploration; bad for minimizing path cost
 Online Iterative-Deepening Search
 Competitive ratio stays small for state space a uniform tree
Online Local Search

 Hill Climbing Search

 Also has physical locality in node expansions
Is, in fact, already an online search algorithm
 Local maxima problematic: can’t randomly transport agent to new state in

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

effort to escape local maximum

 Random Walk as alternative
 Select action at random from current state
 Will eventually find a goal node in a finite space
 Can be very slow, esp. if “backward” steps as common as “forward”
 Hill Climbing with Memory instead of randomness
 Store “current best estimate” of cost to goal at each visited state Starting
estimate is just h(s )
 Augment estimate based on experience in the state space Tends to
“flatten out” local minima, allowing progress Employ optimism under
uncertainty
 Untried actions assumed to have least-possible cost Encourage
exploration of untried paths
Learning in Online Search
o Rampant ignorance a ripe opportunity for learning Agent learns a “map”
of the environment
o Outcome of each action in each state
o Local search agents improve evaluation function accuracy
o Update estimate of value at each visited state
o Would like to infer higher-level domain model
o Example: “Up” in maze search increases y -coordinate Requires
o Formal way to represent and manipulate such general rules (so far, have hidden rules
within the successor function)
o Algorithms that can construct general rules based on observations of the effect of
actions

2.2 CONSTRAINT SATISFACTION PROBLEMS(CSP)

A Constraint Satisfaction Problem(or CSP) is defined by a set of variables ,X1,X2,….Xn,and
a set of constraints C1,C2,…,Cm. Each variable Xi has a nonempty domain D,of possible values.
Each constraint Ci involves some subset of variables and specifies the allowable combinations of
values for that subset.
A State of the problem is defined by an assignment of values to some or all of the variables,{Xi =
vi,Xj = vj,…}. An assignment that does not violate any constraints is called a consistent or legal
assignment. A complete assignment is one in which every variable is mentioned,and a solution to a
CSP is a complete assignment that satisfies all the constraints.
Some CSPs also require a solution that maximizes an objective function.
Example for Constraint Satisfaction Problem :
Figure 2.15 shows the map of Australia showing each of its states and territories. We are given the
task of coloring each region either red,green,or blue in such a way that the neighboring regions have
the same color. To formulate this as CSP ,we define the variable to be the regions
:WA,NT,Q,NSW,V,SA, and T. The domain of each variable is the set {red,green,blue}.The
constraints require neighboring regions to have distinct colors;for example,the allowable
combinations for WA and NT are the pairs
{(red,green),(red,blue),(green,red),(green,blue),(blue,red),(blue,green)}.
The constraint can also be represented more succinctly as the inequality WA not = NT,provided the
constraint satisfaction algorithm has some way to evaluate such expressions.) There are many
possible solutions such as
{ WA = red, NT = green,Q = red, NSW = green, V = red ,SA = blue,T = red}.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

It is helpful to visualize a CSP as a constraint graph,as shown in Figure 2.15(b). The nodes of the
graph corresponds to variables of the problem and the arcs correspond to constraints.

Figure 2.15 (a) Principle states and territories of Australia. Coloring this map can be viewed as
aconstraint satisfaction problem. The goal is to assign colors to each region so that no neighboring
regions have the same color.

Figure 2.15 (b) The map coloring problem represented as a constraint graph.

CSP can be viewed as a standard search problem as follows :

 Initial state : the empty assignment {},in which all variables are unassigned.
 Successor function : a value can be assigned to any unassigned variable,provided that it
does not conflict with previously assigned variables.
 Goal test : the current assignment is complete.
 Path cost : a constant cost(E.g.,1) for every step.
Every solution must be a complete assignment and therefore appears at depth n if there are n
variables.
Depth first search algorithms are popular for CSPs
Varieties of CSPs
(i) Discrete variables
Finite domains
The simplest kind of CSP involves variables that are discrete and have finite domains. Map
coloring problems are of this kind. The 8-queens problem can also be viewed as finite-domain

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

CSP,where the variables Q1,Q2,…..Q8 are the positions each queen in columns 1,….8 and each
variable has the domain {1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8}. If the maximum domain size of any variable in a CSP is
d,then the number of possible complete assignments is O(dn) – that is,exponential in the number of
variables. Finite domain CSPs include Boolean CSPs,whose variables can be either true or false.
Infinite domains
Discrete variables can also have infinite domains – for example,the set of integers or the set of
strings. With infinite domains,it is no longer possible to describe constraints by enumerating all
allowed combination of values. Instead a constraint language of algebric inequalities such as
Startjob1 + 5 <= Startjob3.
(ii) CSPs with continuous domains
CSPs with continuous domains are very common in real world. For example ,in operation research
field,the scheduling of experiments on the Hubble Telescope requires very precise timing of
observations; the start and finish of each observation and maneuver are continuous-valued variables
that must obey a variety of astronomical,precedence and power constraints. The best known
category of continuous-domain CSPs is that of linear programming problems,where the
constraints must be linear inequalities forming a convex region. Linear programming problems can
be solved in time polynomial in the number of variables.
Varieties of constraints :
(i) unary constraints involve a single variable.
Example : SA # green
(ii) Binary constraints involve paris of variables.
Example : SA # WA
(iii) Higher order constraints involve 3 or more variables.
Example : cryptarithmetic puzzles.

Figure 2.16 (a) Cryptarithmetic problem. Each letter stands for a distinct digit;the aim is to
find a substitution of digits for letters such that the resulting sum is arithmetically
correct,with the added restriction that no leading zeros are allowed. (b) The constraint
hypergraph for the cryptarithmetic problem,showint the Alldiff constraint as well as the
column addition constraints. Each constraint is a square box connected to the variables it
contains.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

2.2.2 Backtracking Search for CSPs

The term backtracking search is used for depth-first search that chooses values for one variable at
a time and backtracks when a variable has no legal values left to assign. The algorithm is shown in
figure 2.17.

Figure 2.17 A simple backtracking algorithm for constraint satisfaction problem. The algorithm is
modeled on the recursive depth-first search

Figure 2.17(b) Part of search tree generated by simple backtracking for the map coloring problem.

Propagating information through constraints

So far our search algorithm considers the constraints on a variable only at the time that the
variable is chosen by SELECT-UNASSIGNED-VARIABLE. But by looking at some of the
constraints earlier in the search, or even before the search has started, we can drastically
reduce the search space.
Forward checking
One way to make better use of constraints during search is called forward checking. Whenever a variable X
is assigned, the forward checking process looks at each unassigned variable Y that is connected to X by a
constraint and deletes from Y ’s domain any value that is inconsistent with the value chosen for X. Figure 5.6
shows the progress of a map-coloring search with forward checking.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Constraint propagation
Although forward checking detects many inconsistencies, it does not detect all of them.
Constraint propagation is the general term for propagating the implications of a constraint on one variable
onto other variables.
Arc Consistency

k-Consistency

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Local Search for CSPs

2.2.3 The Structure of Problems

Problem Structure

Independent Subproblems

Tree-Structured CSPs

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

2.4 ADVERSARIAL SEARCH

Competetive environments,in which the agent’s goals are in conflict,give rise to adversarial search
problems – often known as games.

2.4.1 Games
Mathematical Game Theory,a branch of economics,views any multiagent environment as a game
provided that the impact of each agent on the other is “significant”,regardless of whether the agents
are cooperative or competitive. In,AI,”games” are deterministic,turn-taking,two-player,zero-sum
games of perfect information. This means deterministic,fully observable environments in which
there are two agents whose actions must alternate and in which the utility values at the end of the
game are always equal and opposite. For example,if one player wins the game of chess(+1),the
other player necessarily loses(-1). It is this opposition between the agents’ utility functions that
makes the situation adversarial.

Formal Definition of Game

We will consider games with two players,whom we will call MAX and MIN. MAX moves first,and
then they take turns moving until the game is over. At the end of the game, points are awarded to
the winning player and penalties are given to the loser. A game can be formally defined as a search
problem with the following components :
o The initial state,which includes the board position and identifies the player to move.
o A successor function,which returns a list of (move,state) pairs,each indicating a legal move
and the resulting state.
o A terminal test,which describes when the game is over. States where the game has ended
are called terminal states.
o A utility function (also called an objective function or payoff function),which give a
numeric value for the terminal states. In chess,the outcome is a win,loss,or draw,with values
+1,-1,or 0. he payoffs in backgammon range from +192 to -192.

Game Tree
The initial state and legal moves for each side define the game tree for the game. Figure 2.18
shows the part of the game tree for tic-tac-toe (noughts and crosses). From the initial state,MAX has
nine possible moves. Play alternates between MAX’s placing an X and MIN’s placing a 0 until we
reach leaf nodes corresponding to the terminal states such that one player has three in a row or all
the squares are filled. He number on each leaf node indicates the utility value of the terminal state
from the point of view of MAX;high values are assumed to be good for MAX and bad for MIN. It is
the MAX’s job to use the search tree(particularly the utility of terminal states) to determine the best
move.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 2.18 A partial search tree . The top node is the initial state,and MAX move first,placing an X in an
empty square.
2.4.2 Optimal Decisions in Games
In normal search problem,the optimal solution would be a sequence of move leading to a goal
state – a terminal state that is a win. In a game,on the other hand,MIN has something to say about
it,MAX therefore must find a contingent strategy,which specifies MAX’s move in the initial
state,then MAX’s moves in the states resulting from every possible response by MIN,then MAX’s
moves in the states resulting from every possible response by MIN those moves,and so on. An
optimal strategy leads to outcomes at least as good as any other strategy when one is playing an
infallible opponent.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 2.19 A two-ply game tree. The nodes are “MAX nodes”,in which it is AMX’s turn to
move,and the nodes are “MIN nodes”. The terminal nodes show the utility values for MAX;
the other nodes are labeled with their minimax values. MAX’s best move at the root is a1,because it
leads to the successor with the highest minimax value,and MIN’s best reply is b1,because it leads to
the successor with the lowest minimax value.

Figure 2.20 An algorithm for calculating minimax decisions. It returns the

action corresponding to the best possible move,that is,the move that leads to the
outcome with the best utility,under the assumption that the opponent plays to
minimize utility. The functions MAX-VALUE and MIN-VALUE go through
the whole game tree,all the way to the leaves,to determine the backed-up value
of a state.
The minimax Algorithm
The minimax algorithm(Figure 2.20) computes the minimax decision from the current state.
It uses a simple recursive computation of the minimax values of each successor state,directly
implementing the defining equations. The recursion proceeds all the way down to the leaves
of the tree ,and then the minimax values are backed up through the tree as the recursion
unwinds. For example in Figure 2.19,the algorithm first recourses down to the three bottom
left nodes,and uses the utitliy function on them to discover that their values are 3,12,and 8
respectively. Then it takes the minimum of these values,3,and returns it as the backed-up
value of node B. A similar process gives the backed up values of 2 for C and 2 for D.
Finally,we take the maximum of 3,2,and 2 to get the backed-up value of 3 at the root node.
The minimax algorithm performs a complete depth-first exploration of the game tree. If the
maximum depth of the tree is m,and there are b legal moves at each point,then the time

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

complexity of the minimax algorithm is O(bm). The space complexity is O(bm) for an
algorithm that generates successors at once.

2.4.3 Alpha-Beta Pruning

The problem with minimax search is that the number of game states it has to examine is
exponential in the number of moves. Unfortunately,we can’t eliminate the exponent,but we can
effectively cut it in half. By performing pruning,we can eliminate large part of the tree from
consideration. We can apply the technique known as alpha beta pruning ,when applied to a
minimax tree ,it returns the same move as minimax would,but prunes away branches that cannot
possibly influence the final decision.
Alpha Beta pruning gets its name from the following two parameters that describe bounds
on the backed-up values that appear anywhere along the path:

o α : the value of the best(i.e.,highest-value) choice we have found so far at any choice point
along the path of MAX.
o β: the value of best (i.e., lowest-value) choice we have found so far at any choice point
along the path of MIN.
Alpha Beta search updates the values of α and β as it goes along and prunes the remaining branches
at anode(i.e.,terminates the recursive call) as soon as the value of the current node is known to be
worse than the current α and β value for MAX and MIN,respectively. The complete algorithm is
given in Figure 2.21.
The effectiveness of alpha-beta pruning is highly dependent on the order in which the successors
are examined. It might be worthwhile to try to examine first the successors that are likely to be the
best. In such case,it turns out that alpha-beta needs to examine only O(bd/2) nodes to pick the best
move,instead of O(bd) for minimax. This means that the effective branching factor becomes sqrt(b)
instead of b – for chess,6 instead of 35. Put anotherway alpha-beta cab look ahead roughly twice as
far as minimax in the same amount of time.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 2.21 The alpha beta search algorithm. These routines are the same as the
minimax routines in figure 2.20,except for the two lines in each of MIN-VALUE and
MAX-VALUE that maintain α and β

2.4.4 Imperfect ,Real-time Decisions

The minimax algorithm generates the entire game search space,whereas the alpha-beta algorithm allows
us to prune large parts of it. However,alpha-beta still has to search all the way to terminal states for atleast a
portion of search space. Shannon’s 1950 paper,Programming a computer for playing chess,proposed that
programs should cut off the search earlier and apply a heuristic evaluation function to states in the
search,effectively turning nonterminal nodes into terminal leaves. The basic idea is to alter minimax or
alpha-beta in two ways :
(1) The utility function is replaced by a heuristic evaluation function EVAL,which gives an estimate of the
position’s utility,and
(2) the terminal test is replaced by a cutoff test that decides when to apply EVAL.

2.4.5 Games that include Element of Chance

Evaluation functions
An evaluation function returns an estimate of the expected utility of the game from a given position,just as
the heuristic function return an estimate of the distance to the goal.
Games of imperfect information
o Minimax and alpha-beta pruning require too much leaf-node evaluations.
May be impractical within a reasonable amount of time.
o SHANNON (1950):
o Cut off search earlier (replace TERMINAL-TEST by CUTOFF-TEST)
o Apply heuristic evaluation function EVAL (replacing utility function of alpha-beta)
Cutting off search
Change:
– if TERMINAL-TEST(state) then return UTILITY(state)
into
– if CUTOFF-TEST(state,depth) then return EVAL(state)

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Introduces a fixed-depth limit depth

– Is selected so that the amount of time will not exceed what the rules of the game
allow.
When cuttoff occurs, the evaluation is performed.
Heuristic EVAL
Idea: produce an estimate of the expected utility of the game from a given position.
Performance depends on quality of EVAL.
Requirements:
– EVAL should order terminal-nodes in the same way as UTILITY.
– Computation may not take too long.
– For non-terminal states the EVAL should be strongly correlated with the actual
chance of winning.
Only useful for quiescent (no wild swings in value in near future) states
Weighted Linear Function
The introductory chess books give an approximate material value for each piece : each pawn is
worth 1,a knight or bishop is worth 3,a rook 3,and the queen 9. These feature values are then added
up toobtain the evaluation of the position. Mathematically,these kind of evaluation fuction is called
weighted linear function,and it can be expressed as :

Eval(s) = w1 f1(s) + w2 f2(s) + … + wn fn(s)

• e.g., w1 = 9 with
f1(s) = (number of white queens) – (number of black queens), etc.

Games that include chance

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

In real life,there are many unpredictable external events that put us into unforeseen situations.
Many games mirror this unpredictability by including a random element,such as throwing a dice.
Backgammon is a typical game that combines luck and skill. Dice are rolled at the beginning of
player’s turn to determine the legal moves. The backgammon position of Figure 2.23,for
example,white has rolled a 6-5,and has four possible moves.

Figure 2.23 A typical backgammon position. The goal of the game is to move all
one’s pieces off the board. White moves clockwise toward 25,and black moves
counterclockwise toward 0. A piece can move to any position unless there are
multiple opponent pieces there; if there is one opponent ,it is captured and must
start over. In the position shown,white has rolled 6-5 and must choose among four
legal moves (5-10,5-11),(5-11,19-24),(5-10,10-16),and (5-11,11-16)

 White moves clockwise toward 25

 Black moves counterclockwise
toward 0
 A piece can move to any position
unless there are multiple opponent
pieces there; if there is one
opponent, it is captured and
must start over.
 White has rolled 6-5 and must
choose among four legal moves:
(5-10, 5-11), (5-11, 19-24)
(5-10, 10-16), and (5-11, 11-16)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360
 www.edubuzz360.com

Figure 2-24 Schematic game tree for a backgammon position.

Expected minimax value

EXPECTED-MINIMAX-VALUE(n)=
UTILITY(n)
If n is a terminal
maxs  successors(n)
MINIMAX-VALUE(s) If n is a max node
mins  successors(n)
MINIMAX-VALUE(s) If n is a max node
s  successors(n) P(s) .
EXPECTEDMINIMAX(s) If n is a chance node

These equations can be backed-up recursively all the way to the root of the game
tree.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sss.edubuzz360