Journal of Computer Science

Original Research Paper

A Comparative Study of Informed and Uninformed Search

Algorithm to Solve Eight-Puzzle Problem
1
Wahyu Hidayat, 2Fitri Susanti and 3Dedy Rahman Wijaya
1,3Department of Information System, School of Applied Science, Telkom University, Bandung, Indonesia
2Department of Multimedia Technology Engineering, School of Applied Science, Telkom University, Bandung, Indonesia

Article history Abstract: Problems in artificial intelligence can be solved using intelligent
Received: 24-06-2021 tracking methods through intelligent search mechanisms. Understandably,
Revised: 31-08-2021 search algorithm performances are highly dependent on the problem solved.
Accepted: 09-10-2021 In this study, we evaluate and compare the performance of five uninformed and
Corresponding Author:
informed search (breadth-first search, depth first search, optimal search and
Wahyu Hidayat best first search using two heuristic functions, namely mismatched tile and
Department of Information Manhattan distance) algorithms to solve the eight-puzzle game problem.
System, School of Applied For each algorithm, the numbers of raised and explored nodes were
Science, Telkom University, assessed and analyzed. Our experiment demonstrates that informed
Bandung, Indonesia search with heuristic outperforms uninformed search significantly, both
Email: [email protected]
in terms of memory usage efficiency and computational power efficiency.
On average, the informed search using heuristic requires only 5.33% of
memory used by uninformed search and only 4.45% of computational
power demanded by uninformed search. Boxplot analysis also confirms
that informed search using heuristic also delivers more stable
performance contrasted to uninformed search. These could be a concern
for researchers and game developers to consider implementing the
heuristically enhanced search algorithm to utilize memory and
computational power efficiently to solve similar problems.

Keywords: Comparative Study, Uninformed Search, Informed Search,

Heuristic, 8-Puzzle Game

Introduction calculates such cost estimates, called a heuristic

(Russell and Norvig, 2020).
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer In the past five years, a lot of research has been
science that studies the behavior of intelligence, learning focused on studies about uninformed and informed
and adaptation in machines. The main purpose of AI is to search. Some research focuses on finding and developing
mimic and emulate human intelligence then applied it to new search algorithms or improving well-known
machines. Research on AI emphasizes the automation of algorithms, while others focus more on implementing
machine processes that require intelligent behavior. search algorithms in various fields.
Currently, artificial intelligence has promoted emerging However, search algorithm performances are highly
technology integrations and revolutionize a wide range of dependent on the problem being solved. For one particular
applications and fields (Lu, 2019). case, several algorithms show different performances.
Problems in artificial intelligence can be solved by Therefore, it is necessary to study the comparison of
using intelligent tracking methods through an intelligent search algorithm performance for various case studies.
search mechanism. There are two types of search In this study, a various search algorithm is applied to
algorithms, namely uninformed search and informed the 8-puzzle problem. We evaluate five search
search with heuristics. Uninformed search is a search algorithms, namely breadth-first search, depth-first
mechanism that can only distinguish a goal state from a search, optimal search and best-first search using two
non-goal state, with no information on how far the goal heuristic functions; mismatched tile and Manhattan
state from the current state is. On the other hand, the distance function. The purpose of this study was to
informed search can estimate the cost of reaching the evaluate and compare the performances of uninformed
goal from a particular state through a function that (represented by breadth and depth first search) and

© 2021 Wahyu Hidayat, Fitri Susanti and Dedy Rahman Wijaya. This open access article is distributed under a Creative
Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.
Wahyu Hidayat et al. / Journal of Computer Science 2021, 17 (11): 1147.1156
DOI: 10.3844/jcssp.2021.1147.1156

informed search (represented by Best First Search) fast and safe food delivery by a robot (Navya and Ranjith,
algorithms to solve the 8-puzzle game problem. 2021) and even to find the path for the facility staff to
The 8-puzzle was one of the earliest heuristic search travel with the minimum cumulative radiation dose within
problems and it is a perfect case to compare informed with nuclear facilities (Chen et al., 2020). Meanwhile, some
uninformed search. With an average solution of 20 steps other research focus on attempting to solve multicriteria
and an average branching factor of 3, puzzle-8 can decision problem such as to assess the security (Kumar et al.,
easily cause an exhaustive uninformed search to find a 2021) (Kumar et al., 2021), durability (Sahu et al., 2020)
solution among almost 3.5 billion states (Russell and and reliability(Sahu et al., 2021) of software.
Norvig, 2020). Some research focuses on finding and developing new
Using the heuristic is much more promising because search algorithms or improving previously known
the number of unique possible states in 8-puzzle is algorithms. Meister (2020) proposed best first beam
much lower than the number of states that are evaluated search, which is an upgrade from a basic Beam search that
using an exhaustive uninformed search. is derived from Breadth-First Search. It is claimed to
Understandably, the number of evaluated states is perform ten times faster than basic Beam Search to solve
highly related to memory and computational power a decoding problem in a natural language processing task.
requirements. Thus, experimenting on the 8-puzzle by Hatem et al. (2018) propose a modification of the A*
evaluating the number of raised and explored nodes can search algorithm to solve large general-purpose problems
show the different performances among algorithms in using parallel external memory and disk-based search.
terms of memory and computational power efficiency. Iordan (2019) investigates Chebyshev distance, Hamming
The contribution of this study is to find which search distance and Manhattan distance heuristic to improve the
algorithm that provides the best performance to solve the A* search algorithm. Meanwhile, (Hu and Sturtevant,
8-puzzle problem both in terms of memory usage 2019) optimizes Breadth-First Search with an external
efficiency and in terms of computational power memory heuristic to build and store 5.8 trillion entries of
efficiency. By knowing the most efficient search heuristic pattern to solve the Rubik’s Cube problem.
algorithm, game developers can choose the right One of many ways to improve the performance of
algorithm to solve 8-puzzle problems and similar search algorithms is by adding a heuristic function to
searching and pathfinding problems in the field of make the algorithm smarter by emulating the way humans
computer game development. Thus, the games created think. Chowdhary (2020) describes various search
will be more efficient in terms of memory requirements algorithms that utilize heuristic, for instance, Hill-Climbing
and computational power requirements and can be applied search, A* Search and genetic algorithm-based search.
in devices with limited resources. Some heuristics can be applied in real-time and (Ismail and
Agwu, 2019) have investigated the effect of heuristic
Related Works function properties on traditional and real-time
heuristic search methods.
Intelligent tracking methods through an intelligent Due to so many variations among search algorithm
search mechanism can be used to solve various problems and their enhancements, some studies have done
and implemented in many different scenarios. Problems comparison studies to find the most effective and efficient
that can be solved using intelligent search are ranging search algorithm. Pathak et al. (2018) compares
from a very simple problem such as block architecture breadth-first search, depth first search, uniform cost
problem (Rahim et al., 2018a) to a more advanced search, A* and greedy search based on their time and
polyhedra puzzle (Iordan, 2018) and even up to space complexity, optimality and completeness. Iordan
sophisticated problems such as to help an unmanned air (2016) and (Menon and Amali, 2018) compare various
vehicle navigate using as efficient energy as possible search algorithms to solve the 8-puzzle problem. Iordan
(Debnath et al., 2019). (2016) measure the effective branching factor and
Gaming is one of many scenarios where intelligence running time to solve the puzzle while (Menon and
search is mostly used. For example, in a classic Amali, 2018) focus on the number of nodes explored
TicTacToe game (Hutahaean, 2018), an Indonesian and the time required to solve the puzzle.
popular traditional game of "Congklak" (Rahim et al.,
2018b) and general pathfinding task in the game
Methodology
(Zafar et al., 2018).
While some studies implement intelligent search in Eight-puzzle is a simple game consisting of eight tiles
gaming, other studies presented interesting that can be moved that are numbered 1 to 8 and placed on
implementations of intelligent search that are closer to a a "floor" measuring 3 × 3 tiles. One of the tiles of the
real-life scenario. Among them are the implementation of "floor" is always empty and any tiles next to it
intelligence search to facilitate smart shopping experience (horizontally or vertically) can be moved into that empty
in groceries using dynamic pathfinding (Ada et al., 2019), tile. The object of the game is to start from a certain

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configuration and end it with the tiles lying in order the node that is right next to its current parent, as
according to the number on them. illustrated in Fig. 2.
In this study, a various search algorithm is applied To apply the depth-first search method, the
to solve the 8-puzzle problem. We evaluate five search pseudo-code that is executed is as follows:
algorithms, namely breadth-first search, depth-first
search, optimal search and best-first search using two 1. Give the starting node to the open list L
heuristic functions; mismatched tile and Manhattan 2. Loop: If the open list L is empty, it means it failed
Distance function. 3. Put n at the beginning of the open list L
For each algorithm, the numbers of raised and 4. If n is a goal, then the tracking is successful
explored nodes are assessed and analyzed. The 5. Remove n from the open list L
distribution and the ratio of explored to raised nodes are 6. Expand n then assign all child nodes to the open head
also assessed to measure the performance and efficiency and add a pointer from the nth-child node
of each algorithm in terms of memory usage and 7. Back to Loop
computational power requirements.
Optimal Search
Breadth-First Search (BFS)
Breadth-first search and depth-first search only track
In the Breadth-First Search tracking method, all nodes
based on the position of the child of each level in the tree
at level n will be expanded first before visiting nodes at
diagram. One strategy that can be used to improve this is
level n+1. Tracing starts from the root node is continued
by prioritizing the nodes explored using additional
at the first level from left to right, then moves to the next
information. One of the additional information that can be
level is done the same thing.
used for tracking is the cost function calculation. The
Each time a node is visited, the conditions at that node
illustration of the optimal search method is shown in Fig. 3.
are matched with the conditions in the goal state. If the
In this study, the cost function C is the sum of the node
conditions at the visited node are different from the target
depth and the number of nodes explored to get from the
conditions, it means that a solution has not been found.
initial state to the current node, computed as follows:
The tracking process is then carried out on all nodes to a
predetermined depth.
Cp  depth p  E p (1)
On the other hand, if the condition of the visited node
is the same as the target condition, it means that a solution
has been found and the tracking is stopped. The illustration where, p is a vector of the current state and Ep is the
of the breadth-first search can be Fig. 1. number of nodes explored to get from the initial state to p.
To apply the Breadth-First Search method, the Based on the cost value information obtained in Fig. 3,
pseudo-code that is executed is as follows: the node chosen for the next situation is node N1, because
it has the lowest cost. To determine the next node, all
1. Give the starting node to the open list L raised nodes are sorted in ascending order based on their
2. Loop: If the open list L is empty, then tracking is cost function value, calculated using Eq. 1.
stopped The node that has the lowest total cost is selected. In
3. Put n at the beginning of the open list L this case, N5 which has a total cost of 2+2 = 4 is chosen
4. If n is a goal, then the tracking has been as the next explored node. This is repeated until the
successful desired goal state is reached.
5. Remove n from the open list L
6. Put n on the closed list C Best First Search
7. Expand n. Give the tail an open list L of all child Best first search works very similarly with optimal
nodes that have not appeared in open list L or search, but with a fundamental difference. In best first search,
closed list C and assign a pointer to n additional information that can be used to assist the tracking
8. Back to Loop process is not just the value of the cost. Another additional
information that can be used is the heuristic value.
Depth First Search (DFS) Best first search tries to mimic and emulate the human's
In the depth first search tracking method, the tracking approach in solving problems by using a heuristic function
process will be carried out on all the left nodes of the first that measures the likeliness of reaching the goal state from
child before tracking to nodes of the same level. This the currently evaluated state. In this method, it is possible to
process is repeated to a certain depth. If the depth limit return to the previous state if a solution fails to be obtained.
has not been found, then the tracking is continued at the This process is called the backtracking mechanism.
node that is right next to it and has one parent with it. If An example of a heuristic evaluation process of three
the node of one parent is exhausted, the trace continues to different states is given in Fig. 4.

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In this study, two different heuristic information

implemented to enhance the Best First Search algorithm
are (Russell and Norvig, 2020):

a) H1: The number of boxes that do not match the target

(mismatched tile), computed as follows:

m  p, q   i 1 x
n
(2)

where, p is a vector of the current state, q is a vector of the

goal state and x = 0 if pi = qi and x = 1 if pi ≠ qi
Fig. 1: Illustration of breadth-first search
b) H2: The sum of the vertical and horizontal distances
of the boxes that do not match (Manhattan Distance)
computed as follows:

d  p, q   i 1 qi  pi
n
(3)

where p is a vector of the current state, q is a vector of the

goal state and n = 9 since there are nine available positions
of tile in the 8-puzzle.
Based on the heuristic information obtained in Fig. 4,
the node selected for the next state is node N1. This
process is repeated until all nodes are found or all nodes
Fig. 2: Illustration of depth first search are examined to a predetermined depth.
By using the heuristic function, it is possible to return
to the previous state through a backtracking mechanism if
a solution fails to be obtained.
Test Scenario and Performance Metrics
We prepared a total of 30 eight-puzzle cases to solve
using five different algorithms. Each case has an initial
state in the form of a vector p that consists of nine puzzle
elements that are positioned randomly. Each initial state
is ensured to be able to reach its goal state, which is a vector
q that consists of nine puzzle elements with an arrangement
Fig. 3: Illustration of optimal search of 123456780. The limit of node explored is set to 1000 and
the limit of depth explored is set to 25 levels.
The total number of trials is 5 × 30 = 150 trials.
During each trial t, a linked list data structure is
constructed and the numbers of Add Head(), Add Tail()
and Get Head() operations performed in that linked list
determine how many Raised (Rt) and Explored (Et)
nodes during the search process:

Rt  AHt  ATt (4)

Et  GH t (5)

where, AHt is the number of Add Head() operations, ATt is

the number of Add Tail() operations and GHt is the number
of Get Head() operations that is performed during trial t.
Similar to (Zhang et al., 2021) and (Iordan, 2018), in this
study, after the search algorithm has found a solution to solve
the problem, the number of raised nodes Rt and the number
of explored nodes Et are recorded. A ratio r of explored to
Fig. 4: Illustration of best first search with heuristic function h raised node for each trial is computed as follows:

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Et more variance than the number of explored nodes.

rt  (6)
Rt Both boxplots are heavily skewed to the lower
values while some outliers are detected at the top
values. These heavily skewed boxplots indicate that in
To help visualize the distribution of each Et and Rt across most cases, the number of raised and explored cases
different trials and to detect outliers, all values of Et and Rt tend to be on the lower side but the variance is quite
are grouped and sorted in ascending order to construct a high and some occasional extreme values do occur,
boxplot diagram using the following quartile formula: confirming that breadth-first search somewhat gives
inconsistent results.
Q1   n  1 / 4 thTerm (7) Figure 6 shows the uneven distribution of the number
of raised dan explored nodes in depth first search. While
breadth-first search shows a higher variance in the number
Q2   n  1 / 2 thTerm (8) of raised nodes compared to explored nodes, depth first
search shows a similar variance between the number of
Q3   n  1 / 4 thTerm
raised dan explored nodes.
(9)
The number of raised and explored cases in Depth
First Search tends to be on the lower side and although
IQR  Q3  Q1 (10) the boxplots are still skewed, they are not as skewed as
in breadth-first search. Some extreme values are spotted
where, Q1, Q2, Q3 and IQR are first quartile, second on the top values, but not as much as in breadth-first
quartile, third quartile and interquartile range, search. These skewed boxplots indicate that depth first
respectively. Outliers are extreme values that are defined search also gives some inconsistent results, but what
as any value that falls below Q1 - 1.5 IQR or any value more important is the fact that depth first search has a
that falls above Q3 + 1.5 IQR. very wide boxplot, indicating a very high variance
among the results.
Results and Discussion Figure 7 above shows the distribution of the number
of raised dan explored nodes in Optimal Search which is
Our experiment results clearly show that on quite similar to Breadth-First Search. It shows the uneven
average, best first search raised and explore fewer distribution of both raised and explored nodes, where the
nodes compared to Breadth-First Search, depth first number of raised nodes seems to have more variance than
search and optimal search. Table 1 below shows the the number of explored nodes.
number of raised nodes while Table 2 shows the It also shows that the number of raised and explored cases
number of explored nodes. tend to be on the lower side but the variance is high and some
The number of raised nodes correlated with memory extreme values do occur, indicated by both boxplots that are
usage while the number of explored nodes correlated heavily skewed to the lower values and some outliers that are
with the number of operations done by the processor. caught at the top values. These heavily skewed boxplots
Thus, a significantly lower average number of raised indicate that in most cases, optimal search somewhat gives
nodes means that both best first search using inconsistent results. This should be confirmed by further
mismatched tile and using Manhattan distance are far research whether it is indeed caused by its cost function and
superior to breadth-first search, depth first search and whether it could have been avoided by choosing a better-
optimal search in terms of memory usage. Additionally, an suited cost function in optimal search.
also significantly lower average number of explored nodes Figure 8 above shows the distribution of the number
indicates that best first search outperforms other algorithms of raised dan explored nodes in best first search using the
in terms of computational power requirement. mismatched tile heuristic function. Both boxplots are
Uninformed search algorithms generate high numbers narrow and show no significant skewness although some
of raised and explored nodes but depth first search outliers are spotted in the top and bottom values of the
performs worst in both memory usage and computational number of raised nodes.
power requirement. Meanwhile, best first search using A narrow boxplot indicates that best first search
both Manhattan distance and mismatched tile heuristic using the mismatched tile heuristic promises a stable
function perform best in both memory usage and result across different test cases. Some outliers are
computational power requirement. detected in the number of raised nodes, while no outliers
Figure 5 above shows the distribution of the number are found in the number of explored nodes, indicating that
of raised dan explored nodes in breadth-first search. It best first search using the mismatched tile heuristic
shows the uneven distribution of both raised and explored delivers more consistent results in terms of computational
nodes, although the number of raised nodes seems to have power requirements compared to its memory usage.

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Fig. 5: Distribution of raised and explored nodes in breadth-first Fig. 8: Distribution of raised and explored nodes in best first
search search using mismatched tile

Figure 9 shows the distribution of the number of raised

dan explored nodes in best first search using the
Manhattan distance heuristic function. Both boxplots are
narrower than the boxplots in the mismatched tile
heuristic function. However, more outliers are spotted,
both in the number of raised dan explored nodes. This
indicates that the Manhattan distance heuristic function
performs almost as well as mismatched tiles heuristic
functions, albeit a bit more inconsistent at times. Further
research with a larger number of cases and or improved
functions should confirm whether these inconsistencies
are permanent and/or avoidable.
To better illustrate the performance differences
among the five search algorithms, Fig.10 and 11 depict
the distribution of the number of raised and explored
nodes, respectively.
Fig. 6: Distribution of raised and explored nodes in depth first search Figure10 shows that breadth-first search, depth first
search and optimal search raised significantly more nodes
than Best First Search. Both heuristic functions used in
Best First Search generate significantly fewer raised
nodes. The same thing also happened with the number
of explored nodes. Figure 11 shows that breadth-first
search, depth first search and optimal search explore
significantly more nodes than best first search. Both
heuristic functions used in Best First Search also
explore significantly fewer nodes.
Figure 10 and 11 reveal that uninformed search
algorithms tend to have significantly wider boxplots.
Uninformed search algorithms also appear with occasional
outliers detected, indicating high variance in the result and
somewhat inconsistent performances. Meanwhile, best first
search using both heuristic functions show narrow boxplots
and no outliers, confirming stable performance.
The comparison of the average number of raised and
explored nodes among different algorithms is presented in
Fig. 7: Distribution of raised and explored nodes in optimal search the following Table 3.

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Fig. 9: Distribution of raised and explored nodes in best first

search using Manhattan distance

Fig. 11: Comparison of the distribution of the number of raised

nodes

Fig. 12: The average number of raised and explored nodes

In general, all uninformed search algorithms raised

and explored more nodes than informed search with
heuristics. This confirms that the informed search
algorithm with heuristic is far more efficient than
uninformed search algorithms.
Fig. 10: Comparison of the distribution of the number of raised The ratio of explored to raised nodes in uninformed
nodes among different algorithms search also low, meaning a smaller fraction of raised

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nodes is needed to be explored to solve the puzzle. This search algorithm relative to uninformed search
confirms that in solving 8-puzzle, in general, uninformed algorithms. Table 4 and 5 present the average percentage
search performs worse than informed search with of raised and explored nodes in best first search using the
heuristics, both in terms of memory usage and mismatched tile heuristic function and manhattan distance
computational power requirements. heuristic function, respectively.
Figure 12 shows the bar chart comparing the average Table 4 shows that to solve the same 8-puzzle
number of raised and explored nodes. It is clearly shown problem, best first search with mismatched tile heuristic
that both best first search using mismatched tile and function requires to raise only 4.92% nodes and explore
Manhattan distance heuristic functions raised and 4.15% nodes compared to the uninformed search of
explored far fewer nodes compared to breadth-first breadth-first search and depth first search.
search, depth first search and optimal search. This verifies Meanwhile, Table 5 shows that Best First Search with
that in terms of memory usage and computational power
Manhattan distance heuristic function requires to raise
requirements, informed search algorithms represented by
only 5.73% nodes and explore 4.76% nodes compared to
best first search significantly outperform breadth-first
search, depth first search and optimal search that represent the uninformed search of Breadth-first search and depth
uninformed search algorithms. first search. Therefore, on average, best first search
To illustrate the efficiency, we calculate the requires only 5.33% memory and 4.45% of computational
percentage of raised and explored nodes in the informed power required by uninformed search.

Table 1: Comparison among the number of raised nodes

Number of raised nodes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Search algorithm min max average
Breadth first search 6 800 196.57
Depth first search 63 1602 328.87
Optimal search 6 800 196.57
Best first search (mismatched tile) 4 20 12.1
Best first search (Manhattan distance) 4 49 14.1

Table 2: Comparison among the number of explored nodes

Number of explored nodes
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Search algorithm min max average
Breadth-first search 3 291 70.87
Depth first search 27 1571 294.63
Optimal search 3 291 70.87
Best first search (mismatched tile) 2 8 4.73
Best first search (Manhattan distance) 2 18 5.43

Table 3: Comparison of the average number of raised and explored nodes among different algorithms
Average number of Average number Average ratio of
Search algorithm raised nodes of explored nodes explored to raised nodes
Breadth-first search 196.57 70.87 0.368
Depth first search 328.87 294.63 0.748
Optimal search 196.57 70.87 0.368
Best first search (Mismatched tile) 12.10 4.73 0.399
Best first search (Manhattan distance) 14.10 5.43 0.396

Table 4: The average percentage of raised nodes in Best First Search using mismatched tile heuristic compared to uninformed search
Best first search (mismatched The average percentage The average percentage
tile) compared to of raised nodes of explored nodes
Breadth first search 6.16% 6.68%
Depth first search 3.68% 1.61%

Table 5: The average percentage of raised nodes in best first search using Manhattan distance heuristic compared to uninformed search
Best first search (Manhattan The average percentage The average percentage
tile) compared to of raised nodes of explored nodes
Breadth first search 7.17% 7.67%
Depth first Search 4.29% 1.84%

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Conclusion and Future Work Author’s Contributions

Our research findings clearly show that to solve 8-puzzle, Wahyu Hidayat: Collecting relevant literature,
in terms of memory usage and computational power interpreting and analyzing test results, drafting and
requirements, informed search algorithms represented by revising manuscript contents.
best first search significantly outperform breadth-first Fitri Susanti: Conducting test and reporting test
search, depth first search and optimal search that represent results, reviewing manuscript contents.
uninformed search algorithms. All uninformed search Dedy Rahman Wijaya: Supervising and reviewing
algorithms raised and explored more nodes than informed manuscript contents.
search with heuristics. The ratio of explored to raised
nodes in uninformed search also low, meaning informed
search requires a smaller fraction of raised nodes to be Ethics
explored to solve the puzzle. We confirm that we have read and approved the
Our experiment shows that uninformed search manuscript and no ethical issues are involved.
algorithms deliver inconsistent performance. In most
Breadth-First Search cases, the number of raised and
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