Artificial

Intelligence
Course Outcomes
CO1 Understanding about concept and definition AI along with
its agents , its structure and environments (L2)
CO2 Apply various AI search algorithms (uninformed, informed,
heuristic, constraint satisfaction, genetic algorithms). (L3)
CO3 Apply the reinforcement learning and natural language
processing in AI. (L3)
CO4 Apply the natural language for communication and
understand the perception of image formation,
reconstruction of 3D world etc., (L3, L2)
CO5 Understand the Robotic perception like planning to move
etc., and to understand the Philosophical foundation of AI.
(L2)
 ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

UNIT-I

What is artificial intelligence?

1. Artificial Intelligence is the branch of computer science concerned with maki ng

computers behave like humans.
2. Major AI textbooks define artificial intelligence as "the study and design of IntellIgen
t agents," where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and
takes actions which maximize its chances of success.
3. John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1956, defines it as "the science and
engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer
programs."
4. The definitions of AI according to some text books are categorized into
approaches and are summarized in the table below :

Systems that think like humans Systems that think rationally

"The exciting new effort to make computers "The study of mental faculties through the use
think … machines with minds, in the full and of computer models."
literal sense."(Haugeland,1985) (Charniak and McDermont,1985)
Systems that act like humans Systems that act rationally
The art of creating machines that performs "Computational intelligence is the study of the
functions that require intelligence when design of intelligent agents."(Poole et al.,1998)
performed by people."(Kurzweil,1990)

Goals of AI
• To Create Expert Systems − The systems which exhibit intelligent behavior, learn,
demonstrate, explain, and advice its users.
• To Implement Human Intelligence in Machines − Creating systems that understand, think,
learn, and behave like humans.

Applications of Artificial Intelligence:

1. Gaming − AI plays crucial role in strategic games such as chess, poker, tic-tac-toe, etc.,
where machine can think of large number of possible positions based on heuristic
knowledge.
 2. Natural Language Processing − It is possible to interact with the computer that
understands natural language spoken by humans.
3. Expert Systems − There are some applications which integrate machine, software, and
special information to impart reasoning and advising. They provide explanation and advice
to the users.
4. Vision Systems − These systems understand, interpret, and comprehend visual input on the
computer. For example,

5. A spying aeroplane takes photographs, which are used to figure out spatial information or
map of the areas.
6. Doctors use clinical expert system to diagnose the patient.
7. Police use computer software that can recognize the face of criminal with the stored
portrait made by forensic artist.
8. Speech Recognition − Some intelligent systems are capable of hearing and comprehending
the language in terms of sentences and their meanings while a human talks to it. It can
handle different accents, slang words, noise in the background, change in human’s noise
due to cold, etc.
9. Handwriting Recognition − The handwriting recognition software reads the text written
on paper by a pen or on screen by a stylus. It can recognize the shapes of the letters and
convert it into editable text.
10. Intelligent Robots − Robots are able to perform the tasks given by a human. They have
sensors to detect physical data from the real world such as light, heat, temperature,
movement, sound, bump, and pressure. They have efficient processors, multiple sensors
and huge memory, to exhibit intelligence. In addition, they are capable of learning from
their mistakes and they can adapt to the new environment.

History of AI

Maturation of Artificial Intelligence (1943-1952)

1. Year 1943: The first work which is now recognized as AI was done by Warren McCulloch
and Walter pits in 1943. They proposed a model of artificial neurons.
2. Year 1949: Donald Hebb demonstrated an updating rule for modifying the connection
strength between neurons. His rule is now called Hebbian learning.
3. Year 1950: The Alan Turing who was an English mathematician and pioneered Machine
learning in 1950. Alan Turing publishes "Computing Machinery and Intelligence" in
which he proposed a test. The test can check the machine's ability to exhibit intelligent
behavior equivalent to human intelligence, called a Turing test.
The birth of Artificial Intelligence (1952-1956)
1. Year 1955: An Allen Newell and Herbert A. Simon created the "first artificial intelligence
program"Which was named as "Logic Theorist". This program had proved 38 of 52
Mathematics theorems, and find new and more elegant proofs for some theorems.
2. Year 1956: The word "Artificial Intelligence" first adopted by American Computer
scientist John McCarthy at the Dartmouth Conference. For the first time, AI coined as an
academic field.

At that time high-level computer languages such as FORTRAN, LISP, or COBOL were invented.
And the enthusiasm for AI was very high at that time.

The golden years-Early enthusiasm (1956-1974)

1. Year 1966: The researchers emphasized developing algorithms which can solve
mathematical problems. Joseph Weizenbaum created the first chatbot in 1966, which was
named as ELIZA.
2. Year 1972: The first intelligent humanoid robot was built in Japan which was named as
WABOT-1.

The first AI winter (1974-1980)

1. The duration between years 1974 to 1980 was the first AI winter duration. AI winter refers
to the time period where computer scientist dealt with a severe shortage of funding from
government for AI researches.
2. During AI winters, an interest of publicity on artificial intelligence was decreased.

A boom of AI (1980-1987)
1. Year 1980: After AI winter duration, AI came back with "Expert System". Expert systems
were programmed that emulate the decision-making ability of a human expert.
2. In the Year 1980, the first national conference of the American Association of Artificial
Intelligence was held at Stanford University.

The second AI winter (1987-1993)

1. The duration between the years 1987 to 1993 was the second AI Winter duration.
2. Again Investors and government stopped in funding for AI research as due to high cost but
not efficient result. The expert system such as XCON was very cost effective.

The emergence of intelligent agents (1993-2011)

1. Year 1997: In the year 1997, IBM Deep Blue beats world chess champion, Gary Kasparov,
and became the first computer to beat a world chess champion.
2. Year 2002: for the first time, AI entered the home in the form of Roomba, a vacuum
cleaner.
3. Year 2006: AI came in the Business world till the year 2006. Companies like Facebook,
Twitter, and Netflix also started using AI.
Deep learning, big data and artificial general intelligence (2011-present)
1. Year 2011: In the year 2011, IBM's Watson won jeopardy, a quiz show, where it had to
solve the complex questions as well as riddles. Watson had proved that it could understand
natural language and can solve tricky questions quickly.
2. Year 2012: Google has launched an Android app feature "Google now", which was able to
provide information to the user as a prediction.
3. Year 2014: In the year 2014, Chatbot "Eugene Goostman" won a competition in the
infamous "Turing test."
4. Year 2018: The "Project Debater" from IBM debated on complex topics with two master
debaters and also performed extremely well.
5. Google has demonstrated an AI program "Duplex" which was a virtual assistant and which
had taken hairdresser appointment on call, and lady on other side didn't notice that she was
talking with the machine.

STATE OF ART

Agents and environments:

An agent is anything that can be viewed as perceiving its environment through sensors and
sensor acting upon that environment through actuators.

1. A human agent has eyes, ears, and other organs for sensors and hands, legs, mouth, and
other body parts for actuators.
2. A robotic agent might have cameras and infrared range finders for sensors and various
motors for actuators.
3. A software agent receives keystrokes, file contents, and network packets as sensory
inputs and acts on the environment by displaying on the screen, writing files, and
sending network packets.

FIG:AGENT WORKING
Sensor: Sensor is a device which detects the change in the environment and sends the information
to other electronic devices. An agent observes its environment through sensors.

Actuators: Actuators are the component of machines that converts energy into motion. The
actuators are only responsible for moving and controlling a system. An actuator can be an electric
motor, gears, rails, etc.

Effectors: Effectors are the devices which affect the environment. Effectors can be legs, wheels,
arms, fingers, wings, fins, and display screen.

Percept

We use the term percept to refer to the agent's perceptual inputs at any given instant.
Percept Sequence

An agent's percept sequence is the complete history of everything the agent has ever
perceived.

Agent function

Mathematically speaking, we say that an agent's behavior is described by the agent function
that maps any given percept sequence to an action.
Agent program

1. The agent function for an artificial agent will be implemented by an agent program.
2. It is important to keep these two ideas distinct.
3. The agent function is an abstract mathematical description;
4. the agent program is a concrete implementation, running on the agent architecture.
5. To illustrate these ideas, we will use a very simple example-the vacuum-cleaner world
shown in Figure.
6. This particular world has just two locations: squares A and B.
7. The vacuum agent perceives which square it is in and whether there is dirt in
square.
8. It can choose to move left, move right, suck up the dirt, or do nothing.
9. One very simple agent function is the following:
10. if the current square is dirty, then suck, otherwise,
11. it move to the other square.
12. A partial tabulation of this agent function is shown in Figure.
Agent function

Percept Sequence Action

[A, Clean] Right
[A, Dirty] Suck
[B, Clean] Left
[B, Dirty] Suck
[A, Clean], [A, Clean] Right
[A, Clean], [A, Dirty] Suck
….. …..

Agent program
function Reflex-VACUUM-AGENT ([locations, status]) returns an
action if status = Dirty then return Suck
else if location = A then return Right
elseif location = B then return Left

Intelligent Agents:

An intelligent agent is an autonomous entity which act upon an environment using sensors and
actuators for achieving goals. An intelligent agent may learn from the environment to achieve their
goals. A thermostat is an example of an intelligent agent.

Following are the main four rules for an AI agent:

o Rule 1: An AI agent must have the ability to perceive the environment.

o Rule 2: The observation must be used to make decisions.
o Rule 3: Decision should result in an action.
o Rule 4: The action taken by an AI agent must be a rational action.

Structure of an AI Agent
The task of AI is to design an agent program which implements the agent function. The structure of
an intelligent agent is a combination of architecture and agent program. It can be viewed as:

Agent = Architecture + Agent program

Following are the main three terms involved in the structure of an AI agent:

Architecture: Architecture is machinery that an AI agent executes on.

Agent Function: Agent function is used to map a percept to an action.

Agent program: Agent program is an implementation of agent function. An agent program

executes on the physical architecture to produce function f.

Rational Agent:

A rational agent is an agent which has clear preference, models uncertainty, and acts in a way to
maximize its performance measure with all possible actions.

A rational agent is said to perform the right things. AI is about creating rational agents to use for
game theory and decision theory for various real-world scenarios.

For an AI agent, the rational action is most important because in AI reinforcement learning
algorithm, for each best possible action, agent gets the positive reward and for each wrong action,
an agent gets a negative reward.

Good Behavior: The concept of Rationality

Rationality:

The rationality of an agent is measured by its performance measure. Rationality can be judged on
the basis of following points:

o Performance measure which defines the success criterion.

o Agent prior knowledge of its environment.
o Best possible actions that an agent can perform.
o The sequence of percepts.

Performance measures

1. A performance measure embodies the criterion for success of an agent's behavior.

2. When an agent is plunked down in an environment, it generates a sequence of actions
according to the percepts it receives.
3. This sequence of actions causes the environment to go through a sequence of states.
4. If the sequence is desirable, then the agent has performed well.
PEAS Representation

PEAS is a type of model on which an AI agent works upon. When we define an AI agent or
rational agent, then we can group its properties under PEAS representation model. It is made up
of four words:

o P: Performance measure

o E: Environment

o A: Actuators

o S: Sensors

Examples:

1) Self Driving car

Performance: Safety, time, legal drive, comfort

Environment: Roads, other vehicles, road signs, pedestrian
Actuators: Steering, accelerator, brake, signal, horn
Sensors: Camera, GPS, speedometer, odometer, accelerometer, sonar.

2) Medical Diagnose

Performance: Healthy patient,Minimized cost

Environment: Patient,Hospital,Staff
Actuators: Tests,Treatments

Sensors: Keyboard(Entry of symptoms)

3) Vacuum Cleaner
Performance: Cleanness,Efficiency,Battery life,Security

Environment: Patient,Hospital,Staff

Actuators: Wheels,Brushes,Vacuum, Extractor

Sensors:Camera,Dirt detection sensor,Cliff sensor,Bump Sensor,Infrared Wall Sensor

4) Part -picking Robot

Performance: Percentage of parts in correct bins.

Environment: Conveyor belt with parts,Bins
 Actuators: Jointed Arms,Hand
Sensors: Camera,Joint angle sensors.

Types of Agents

Agents can be grouped into four classes based on their degree of perceived intelligence and capability :
• Simple Reflex Agents
• Model-Based Reflex Agents
• Goal-Based Agents
• Utility-Based Agents
• Learning Agent

Simple reflex agents

Simple reflex agents ignore the rest of the percept history and act only on the basis of the current percept.
Percept history is the history of all that an agent has perceived to date. The agent function is based on
the condition-action rule. A condition-action rule is a rule that maps a state i.e, condition to an action. If the
condition is true, then the action is taken, else not. This agent function only succeeds when the environment is
fully observable. For simple reflex agents operating in partially observable environments, infinite loops are
often unavoidable. It may be possible to escape from infinite loops if the agent can randomize its actions.

Problems with Simple reflex agents are :

• Very limited intelligence.
• No knowledge of non-perceptual parts of the state.
• Usually too big to generate and store.
• If there occurs any change in the environment, then the collection of rules need to be updated.

Model-based reflex agents

It works by finding a rule whose condition matches the current situation. A model-based agent can
handle partially observable environments by the use of a model about the world. The agent has to keep track
of the internal state which is adjusted by each percept and that depends on the percept history. The current
state is stored inside the agent which maintains some kind of structure describing the part of the world which
cannot be seen.
Updating the state requires information about :
• how the world evolves independently from the agent, and
• how the agent’s actions affect the world.

Goal-based agents
These kinds of agents take decisions based on how far they are currently from their goal(description of
desirable situations). Their every action is intended to reduce its distance from the goal. This allows the agent a
way to choose among multiple possibilities, selecting the one which reaches a goal state. The knowledge that
supports its decisions is represented explicitly and can be modified, which makes these agents more flexible.
They usually require search and planning. The goal-based agent’s behavior can easily be changed.
Utility-based agents
The agents which are developed having their end uses as building blocks are called utility-based agents. When
there are multiple possible alternatives, then to decide which one is best, utility-based agents are used. They
choose actions based on a preference (utility) for each state. Sometimes achieving the desired goal is not
enough. We may look for a quicker, safer, cheaper trip to reach a destination. Agent happiness should be taken
into consideration. Utility describes how “happy” the agent is. Because of the uncertainty in the world, a
utility agent chooses the action that maximizes the expected utility. A utility function maps a state onto a real
number which describes the associated degree of happiness.

Learning Agent :
A learning agent in AI is the type of agent that can learn from its past experiences or it has learning
capabilities. It starts to act with basic knowledge and then is able to act and adapt automatically through
learning.
A learning agent has mainly four conceptual components, which are:
1. Learning element: It is responsible for making improvements by learning from the environment
2. Critic: The learning element takes feedback from critics which describes how well the agent is doing with
respect to a fixed performance standard.
3. Performance element: It is responsible for selecting external action
4. Problem Generator: This component is responsible for suggesting actions that will lead to new and
informative experiences.

The Nature of Environments

An environment is everything in the world which surrounds the agent, but it is not a part of an
agent itself. An environment can be described as a situation in which an agent is present.

The environment is where agent lives, operate and provide the agent with something to sense and
act upon it. An environment is mostly said to be non-feministic.

An environment is everything in the world which surrounds the agent, but it is not a part of an
agent itself. An environment can be described as a situation in which an agent is present.

The environment is where agent lives, operate and provide the agent with something to sense and
act upon it. An environment is mostly said to be non-feministic.

Features of Environment

An environment can have various features from the point of view of an agent:
 1. Fully observable vs Partially Observable
2. Static vs Dynamic
3. Discrete vs Continuous
4. Deterministic vs Stochastic
5. Single-agent vs Multi-agent
6. Episodic vs sequential
7. Known vs Unknown
8. Accessible vs Inaccessible

1. Fully observable vs Partially Observable:

1. If an agent sensor can sense or access the complete state of an environment at each point of
time then it is a fully observable environment, else it is partially observable.
2. A fully observable environment is easy as there is no need to maintain the internal state to
keep track history of the world.
3. An agent with no sensors in all environments then such an environment is called
as unobservable.

2. Deterministic vs Stochastic:
1. If an agent's current state and selected action can completely determine the next state of the
environment, then such environment is called a deterministic environment.
2. A stochastic environment is random in nature and cannot be determined completely by an
agent.
3. In a deterministic, fully observable environment, agent does not need to worry about
uncertainty.

3. Episodic vs Sequential:
1. In an episodic environment, there is a series of one-shot actions, and only the current
percept is required for the action.

2. However, in Sequential environment, an agent requires memory of past actions to

determine the next best actions
4. Single-agent vs Multi-agent
1. If only one agent is involved in an environment, and operating by itself then such an
environment is called single agent environment.
2. However, if multiple agents are operating in an environment, then such an environment is
called a multi-agent environment.
3. The agent design problems in the multi-agent environment are different from single agent
environment.

5. Static vs Dynamic:
1. If the environment can change itself while an agent is deliberating then such environment is
called a dynamic environment else it is called a static environment.
2. Static environments are easy to deal because an agent does not need to continue looking at
the world while deciding for an action.
3. However for dynamic environment, agents need to keep looking at the world at each action.
4. Taxi driving is an example of a dynamic environment whereas Crossword puzzles are an
example of a static environment.

6. Discrete vs Continuous:

1. If in an environment there are a finite number of percepts and actions that can be performed
within it, then such an environment is called a discrete environment else it is called
continuous environment.
2. A chess gamecomes under discrete environment as there is a finite number of moves that
can be performed.
3. A self-driving car is an example of a continuous environment.

7. Known vs Unknown
1. Known and unknown are not actually a feature of an environment, but it is an agent's state
of knowledge to perform an action.
2. In a known environment, the results for all actions are known to the agent. While in
unknown environment, agent needs to learn how it works in order to perform an action.
3. It is quite possible that a known environment to be partially observable and an Unknown
environment to be fully observable.

8. Accessible vs Inaccessible
1. If an agent can obtain complete and accurate information about the state's environment,
then such an environment is called an Accessible environment else it is called inaccessible.
2. An empty room whose state can be defined by its temperature is an example of an
accessible environment.
3. Information about an event on earth is an example of Inaccessible environment.
28 Chapter 1. Introduction

new patterns that help label new examples. Banko and Brill (2001) show that techniques
like this perform even better as the amount of available text goes from a million words to a
billion and that the increase in performance from using more data exceeds any difference in
algorithm choice; a mediocre algorithm with 100 million words of unlabeled training data
outperforms the best known algorithm with 1 million words.
As another example, Hays and Efros (2007) discuss the problem of filling in holes in a
photograph. Suppose you use Photoshop to mask out an ex-friend from a group photo, but
now you need to fill in the masked area with something that matches the background. Hays
and Efros defined an algorithm that searches through a collection of photos to find something
that will match. They found the performance of their algorithm was poor when they used
a collection of only ten thousand photos, but crossed a threshold into excellent performance
when they grew the collection to two million photos.
Work like this suggests that the “knowledge bottleneck” in AI—the problem of how to
express all the knowledge that a system needs—may be solved in many applications by learn-
ing methods rather than hand-coded knowledge engineering, provided the learning algorithms
have enough data to go on (Halevy et al., 2009). Reporters have noticed the surge of new ap-
plications and have written that “AI Winter” may be yielding to a new Spring (Havenstein,
2005). As Kurzweil (2005) writes, “today, many thousands of AI applications are deeply
embedded in the infrastructure of every industry.”

1.4 T HE S TATE OF THE A RT

What can AI do today? A concise answer is difficult because there are so many activities in
so many subfields. Here we sample a few applications; others appear throughout the book.
Robotic vehicles: A driverless robotic car named S TANLEY sped through the rough
terrain of the Mojave dessert at 22 mph, finishing the 132-mile course first to win the 2005
DARPA Grand Challenge. S TANLEY is a Volkswagen Touareg outfitted with cameras, radar,
and laser rangefinders to sense the environment and onboard software to command the steer-
ing, braking, and acceleration (Thrun, 2006). The following year CMU’s B OSS won the Ur-
ban Challenge, safely driving in traffic through the streets of a closed Air Force base, obeying
traffic rules and avoiding pedestrians and other vehicles.
Speech recognition: A traveler calling United Airlines to book a flight can have the en-
tire conversation guided by an automated speech recognition and dialog management system.
Autonomous planning and scheduling: A hundred million miles from Earth, NASA’s
Remote Agent program became the first on-board autonomous planning program to control
the scheduling of operations for a spacecraft (Jonsson et al., 2000). R EMOTE AGENT gen-
erated plans from high-level goals specified from the ground and monitored the execution of
those plans—detecting, diagnosing, and recovering from problems as they occurred. Succes-
sor program MAPGEN (Al-Chang et al., 2004) plans the daily operations for NASA’s Mars
Exploration Rovers, and MEXAR2 (Cesta et al., 2007) did mission planning—both logistics
and science planning—for the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission in 2008.
Section 1.5. Summary 29

Game playing: IBM’s D EEP B LUE became the first computer program to defeat the
world champion in a chess match when it bested Garry Kasparov by a score of 3.5 to 2.5 in
an exhibition match (Goodman and Keene, 1997). Kasparov said that he felt a “new kind of
intelligence” across the board from him. Newsweek magazine described the match as “The
brain’s last stand.” The value of IBM’s stock increased by $18 billion. Human champions
studied Kasparov’s loss and were able to draw a few matches in subsequent years, but the
most recent human-computer matches have been won convincingly by the computer.
Spam fighting: Each day, learning algorithms classify over a billion messages as spam,
saving the recipient from having to waste time deleting what, for many users, could comprise
80% or 90% of all messages, if not classified away by algorithms. Because the spammers are
continually updating their tactics, it is difficult for a static programmed approach to keep up,
and learning algorithms work best (Sahami et al., 1998; Goodman and Heckerman, 2004).
Logistics planning: During the Persian Gulf crisis of 1991, U.S. forces deployed a
Dynamic Analysis and Replanning Tool, DART (Cross and Walker, 1994), to do automated
logistics planning and scheduling for transportation. This involved up to 50,000 vehicles,
cargo, and people at a time, and had to account for starting points, destinations, routes, and
conflict resolution among all parameters. The AI planning techniques generated in hours
a plan that would have taken weeks with older methods. The Defense Advanced Research
Project Agency (DARPA) stated that this single application more than paid back DARPA’s
30-year investment in AI.
Robotics: The iRobot Corporation has sold over two million Roomba robotic vacuum
cleaners for home use. The company also deploys the more rugged PackBot to Iraq and
Afghanistan, where it is used to handle hazardous materials, clear explosives, and identify
the location of snipers.
Machine Translation: A computer program automatically translates from Arabic to
English, allowing an English speaker to see the headline “Ardogan Confirms That Turkey
Would Not Accept Any Pressure, Urging Them to Recognize Cyprus.” The program uses a
statistical model built from examples of Arabic-to-English translations and from examples of
English text totaling two trillion words (Brants et al., 2007). None of the computer scientists
on the team speak Arabic, but they do understand statistics and machine learning algorithms.
These are just a few examples of artificial intelligence systems that exist today. Not
magic or science fiction—but rather science, engineering, and mathematics, to which this
book provides an introduction.

1.5 S UMMARY

This chapter defines AI and establishes the cultural background against which it has devel-
oped. Some of the important points are as follows:
• Different people approach AI with different goals in mind. Two important questions to
ask are: Are you concerned with thinking or behavior? Do you want to model humans
or work from an ideal standard?
 UNIT 2

SOLVING PROBLEMS BY SERACHING

Problem Solving Agents

Problem-solving agents:

In Artificial Intelligence, Search techniques are universal problem-solving methods. Rational

agents or Problem-solving agents in AI mostly used these search strategies or algorithms to solve a
specific problem and provide the best result. Problem-solving agents are the goal-based agents and use
atomic representation. In this topic, we will learn various problem-solving search algorithms.

Search algorithm

A search algorithm is the step-by-step procedure used to locate specific data among a collection of
data. It is considered a fundamental procedure in computing. In computer science, when searching for
data, the difference between a fast application and a slower one often lies in the use of the proper search
algorithm
Search Algorithm Terminologies
1. Search: Searchingis a step by step procedure to solve a search-problem in a given search space. A
search problem can have three main factors:

a. Search Space: Search space represents a set of possible solutions, which a system may
have.
b. Start State: It is a state from where agent begins the search.
c. Goal test: It is a function which observe the current state and returns whether the goal state
is achieved or not.

2. Search tree: A tree representation of search problem is called Search tree. The root of the search
tree is the root node which is corresponding to the initial state.
3. Actions: It gives the description of all the available actions to the agent.
4. Transition model: A description of what each action do, can be represented as a transition model.
5. Path Cost: It is a function which assigns a numeric cost to each path.
6. Solution: It is an action sequence which leads from the start node to the goal node.
7. Optimal Solution: If a solution has the lowest cost among all solutions.

Properties of Search Algorithms:

Following are the four essential properties of search algorithms to compare the efficiency of these
algorithms:

Completeness: A search algorithm is said to be complete if it guarantees to return a solution if at least any
solution exists for any random input.

10 Sec
Optimality: If a solution found for an algorithm is guaranteed to be the best solution (lowest path cost)
among all other solutions, then such a solution for is said to be an optimal solution.

Time Complexity: Time complexity is a measure of time for an algorithm to complete its task.

Space Complexity: It is the maximum storage space required at any point during the search, as the
complexity of the problem.

Steps problem-solving in AI

The problem of AI is directly associated with the nature of humans and their activities. So we need a
number of finite steps to solve a problem which makes human easy works.
These are the following steps which require to solve a problem :
• Goal Formulation: This one is the first and simple step in problem-solving. It organizes finite steps to
formulate a target/goals which require some action to achieve the goal. Today the formulation of the
goal is based on AI agents.
• Problem formulation: It is one of the core steps of problem-solving which decides what action
should be taken to achieve the formulated goal. In AI this core part is dependent upon software agent
which consisted of the following components to formulate the associated problem.

Components to formulate the associated problem:

• Initial State: This state requires an initial state for the problem which starts the AI agent towards a
specified goal. In this state new methods also initialize problem domain solving by a specific class.
• Action: This stage of problem formulation works with function with a specific class taken from the
initial state and all possible actions done in this stage.
• Transition: This stage of problem formulation integrates the actual action done by the previous action
stage and collects the final stage to forward it to their next stage.
• Goal test: This stage determines that the specified goal achieved by the integrated transition model or
not, whenever the goal achieves stop the action and forward into the next stage to determines the cost
to achieve the goal.
• Path costing: This component of problem-solving numerical assigned what will be the cost to achieve
the goal. It requires all hardware software and human working cos

EXAMPLE PROBLEMS

a. The problem solving approach has been applied to a vast array of task environments.
i. Some best known problems are summarized below.
b. They are distinguished as toy or real-world problems
1. 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.
2. A Real world problem is one whose solutions people actually care
about.
TOY PROBLEMS

Vacuum World Example

1. 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.
2. Initial state: Any state can be designated as initial state.

3. 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
4. Goal Test : This tests whether all the squares are clean.
5. Path test : Each step costs one ,so that the the path cost is the number of steps in the path.

Vacuum World State Space

The state space for the vacuum world.

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

8-puzzle:

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

Example: The 8-puzzle

The problem formulation is as follows :

a. States : A state description specifies the location of each of the eight tiles and the blank in one
of the nine squares.
b. 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.
c. Successor function : This generates the legal states that result from trying the four actions (blank
moves Left,Right,Vp or down).
d. Goal Test : This checks whether the state matches the goal configuration shown in figure
2.4.(Other goal configurations are possible)
e. Path cost: Each step costs 1,so the path cost is the number of steps in the path.
f. The 8-puzzle belongs to the family of sliding-block puzzles, which are often used as
i. test problems for new search algorithms in AI.
g. This general class is known as NP-complete.
h. The 8-puzzle has 9!/2 = 181,440 reachable states and is easily solved.
i. 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.
j. 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

1. 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).
2. The following figure shows an attempted solution that fails: the queen in the right most column
is attacked by the queen at the top left.
3. 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.
4. A complete-state formulation starts with all 8 queens on the board and move them around.
5. In either case the path cost is of no interest because only the final state counts.
 8-queens problem
The first incremental formulation one might try is the following :

a. States : Any arrangement of 0 to 8 queens on board is a state.

b. Initial state : No queen on the board.
c. Successor function : Add a queen to any empty square.
d. Goal Test : 8 queens are on the board,none attacked.

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. :

a. States : Arrangements of n queens ( 0 <= n < = 8 ) ,one per column in the

left most columns ,with no queen attacking another are states.
b. 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.
a. For the 100 queens the initial formulation has roughly 10400 states whereas the
improved formulation has about 1052 states.
b. This is a huge reduction, but the improved state space is still too big for the algorithms
to handle.

REAL WORLD PROBLEMS

1. A real world problem is one whose solutions people actually care about.
2. They tend not to have a single agreed upon description, but attempt is made to give general flavor
of their formulation,
The following are the some real world problems,
a. Route Finding Problem
b. Touring Problems
c. Travelling Salesman Problem
d. Robot Navigation
ROUTE-FINDING PROBLEM

1. Route-finding problem is defined in terms of specified locations and transitions along links
between them.
2. 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 :

1. States : Each is represented by a location(e.g.,an airport) and the current time.

2. Initial state : This is specified by the problem.
3. 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.
4. Goal Test : Are we at the destination by some prespecified time?
5. 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

1. Touring problems are closely related to route-finding problems,but with an important

difference.
2. Consider for example, the problem, "Visit every city at least once" as shown in Romania map.
3. As with route-finding the actions correspond to trips between adjacent cities. The state space,
however,is quite different.
4. Initial state would be "In Bucharest; visited{Bucharest}".
5. Intermediate state would be "In Vaslui; visited
a. {Bucharest,Vrziceni,Vaslui}".
6. Goal test would check whether the agent is in Bucharest and all 20cities have been visited.

THE TRAVELLING SALESPERSON PROBLEM (TSP)

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

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.

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 :

a. Completeness: Is the algorithm guaranteed to find a solution when there is one?
b. Optinality : Does the strategy find the optimal solution
c. Time complexity: How long does it take to find a solution?
d. Space complexity: How much memory is needed to perform the search

SEARCHING FOR SOLUTIONS

State Spaces

One general formulation of intelligent action is in terms of a state space. A state contains all of the
information necessary to predict the effects of an action and to determine whether a state satisfies the
goal.
Assumptions of State-space searching :
1. The agent has perfect knowledge of the state space and is planning for the case where it observes
what state it is in: there is full observability.
2. The agent has a set of actions that have known deterministic effects.
3. The agent can determine whether a state satisfies the goal

A state-space problem consists of

1. A set of states
2. A distinguished state called the start state
3. For each state, a set of actions available to the agent in that state
4. an action function that, given a state and an action, returns a new state
5. A goal specified as a Boolean function, goal(s)goal⁢(s), that is true when state ss satisfies the
goal, in which case we say that ss is a goal state
6. A criterion that specifies the quality of an acceptable solution. For example, any sequence of
actions that gets the agent to the goal state may be acceptable, or there may be costs associated
with actions and the agent may be required to find a sequence that has minimal total cost. A
solution that is best according to some criterion is called an optimal solution. We do not always
need an optimal solution, for example, we may be satisfied with any solution that is within 10%
of optimal.
Graph Searching
1. The problem of finding a sequence of actions to achieve a goal is abstracted as searching for
paths in directed graphs.

2. To solve a problem, first define the underlying search space and then apply a search
algorithm to that search space.

3. Many problem-solving tasks are transformable into the problem of finding a path in a graph.

4. Searching in graphs provides an appropriate abstract model of problem solving independent

of a particular domain.

A Generic Searching Algorithm

A generic algorithm to search for a solution path in a graph. The algorithm calls procedures that can
be coded to implement various search strategies.
 FIG: Problem solving by graph searching
The intuitive idea behind the generic search algorithm, given a graph, a start node, and a goal predicate, is to
explore paths incrementally from the start node. This is done by maintaining a frontier (or fringe) of paths
from the start node. The frontier contains all of the paths that could form initial segments of paths from the
start node to a goal node Initially, the frontier contains the trivial path containing just the start node, and no
arcs. As the search proceeds, the frontier expands into the unexplored nodes until a goal node is
encountered. Different search strategies are obtained by providing an appropriate implementation of the
frontier.

Generic graph searching algorithm

1.procedure Search(G,S,goalG,S,goal)
2: Inputs
3: GG: graph with nodes NN and arcs AA
4: ss: start node
5: goal: Boolean function of nodes
6: Output
7: path from ss to a node for which goal is true
8: or ⊥⊥ if there are no solution paths
9: Local
10: Frontier: set of paths
11: Frontier:={⟨s⟩}Frontier:=⁢{⟨s⟩}
12: while Frontier≠{}Frontier≠{} do
13: select and remove ⟨n0,…,nk⟩⟨n0,…,nk⟩ from Frontier
14: if goal(nk)goal⁢(nk) then
15: return ⟨n0,…,nk⟩⟨n0,…,nk⟩
16: Frontier:=Frontier∪{⟨n0,…,nk,n⟩:⟨nk,n⟩∈A}Frontier:=Frontier∪{⟨n0,…,nk,n⟩:⟨nk,n⟩∈A}
17: return ⊥⊥

The frontier is a set of paths. Initially, the frontier contains the path of zero cost consisting of just the start
node. At each step, the algorithm removes a path ⟨n0,…,nk⟩⟨n0,…,nk⟩ from the frontier.
If goal(nk)goal⁢(nk) is true (i.e., nknk is a goal node), it has found a solution and returns the
path ⟨n0,…,nk⟩⟨n0,…,nk⟩. Otherwise, the path is extended by one more arc by finding the neighbors
of nknk. For every neighbor nn of nknk, the path ⟨n0,…,nk,n⟩⟨n0,…,nk,n⟩ is added to the frontier. This step
is known as expanding the path ⟨n0,…,nk⟩⟨n0,…,nk⟩.

This algorithm has a few features that should be noted:

1.Which path is selected at line 13 defines the search strategy. The selection of a path can affect the
efficiency; see the box for more details on the use of “select”.
2.It is useful to think of the return at line 15 as a temporary return, where a caller can retry the search to
get another answer by continuing the while loop. This can be implemented by having a class that keeps
the state of the search and a search()s⁢e⁢a⁢r⁢c⁢h⁢() method that returns the next solution.
3.If the procedure returns ⊥⊥ (“bottom”), there are no solutions, or no remaining solutions if the search
has been retried.
4.The algorithm only tests if a path ends in a goal node after the path has been selected from the frontier,
not when it is added to the frontier. There are two important reasons for this. There could be a costly arc
from a node on the frontier to a goal node. The search should not always return the path with this arc,
because a lower-cost solution may exist. This is crucial when the lowest-cost path is required. A second
reason is that it may be expensive to determine whether a node is a goal node, and so this should be
delayed in case the computation is not necessary.

If the node at the end of the selected path is not a goal node and it has no neighbors, then extending the
path means removing the path from the frontier. This outcome is reasonable because this path could not be
part of a path from the start node to a goal node.

Types of search algorithms

Based on the search problems we can classify the search algorithms into uninformed (Blind search)
search and informed search (Heuristic search) algorithms.
 Uninformed/Blind Search:

The uninformed search does not contain any domain knowledge such as closeness, the location of the
goal. It operates in a brute-force way as it only includes information about how to traverse the tree and
how to identify leaf and goal nodes. Uninformed search applies a way in which search tree is searched
without any information about the search space like initial state operators and test for the goal, so it is also
called blind search.It examines each node of the tree until it achieves the goal node.

It can be divided into five main types:

o Breadth-first search

o Uniform cost search

o Depth-first search

o Iterative deepening depth-first search

o Bidirectional Search

Breadth-first search
Breadth-first search (BFS) is an algorithm for traversing or searching tree or graph data structures. It
starts at the tree root (or some arbitrary node of a graph, sometimes referred to as a ‘search key’), and
explores all of the neighbour nodes at the present depth prior to moving on to the nodes at the next depth
level.

BFS expands the leaf node with the lowest path cost so far, and keeps going until a goal node is
generated. If the path cost simply equals the number of links, we can implement this as a simple queue
(“first in, first out”)..

Depth-first Search
o Depth-first search isa recursive algorithm for traversing a tree or graph data structure.
o It is called the depth-first search because it starts from the root node and follows each path to its
greatest depth node before moving to the next path.
o DFS uses a stack data structure for its implementation.

o The process of the DFS algorithm is similar to the BFS algorithm.

Advantage:

o DFS requires very less memory as it only needs to store a stack of the nodes on the path from root
node to the current node.
o It takes less time to reach to the goal node than BFS algorithm (if it traverses in the right path).
Disadvantage:

o There is the possibility that many states keep re-occurring, and there is no guarantee of finding
the solution.
o DFS algorithm goes for deep down searching and sometime it may go to the infinite loop.

Completeness: DFS search algorithm is complete within finite state space as it will expand every node
within a limited search tree.

Time Complexity: Time complexity of DFS will be equivalent to the node traversed by the algorithm. It
is given by:

T(n)= 1+ n2+ n3 +. + nm=O(nm)

Where, m= maximum depth of any node and this can be much larger than d (Shallowest solution depth)
Space Complexity: DFS algorithm needs to store only single path from the root node, hence space
complexity of DFS is equivalent to the size of the fringe set, which is O(bm).

Depth-Limited Search Algorithm:

A depth-limited search algorithm is similar to depth-first search with a predetermined limit. Depth-limited
search can solve the drawback of the infinite path in the Depth-first search. In this algorithm, the node at the
depth limit will treat as it has no successor nodes further.

Depth-limited search can be terminated with two Conditions of failure:

o Standard failure value: It indicates that problem does not have any solution.
o Cutoff failure value: It defines no solution for the problem within a given depth limit.

Advantages:

Depth-limited search is Memory efficient.

Disadvantages:

o Depth-limited search also has a disadvantage of incompleteness.

o It may not be optimal if the problem has more than one solution.
Bidirectional search
Bidirectional search algorithm runs two simultaneous searches, one form initial state called as forward-
search and other from goal node called as backward-search, to find the goal node. Bidirectional search
replaces one single search graph with two small subgraphs in which one starts the search from an initial
vertex and other starts from goal vertex. The search stops when these two graphs intersect each other.

Bidirectional search can use search techniques such as BFS, DFS, DLS, etc.

Advantages:

o Bidirectional search is fast.

o Bidirectional search requires less memory

Disadvantages:

Implementation of the bidirectional search tree is difficult.

In bidirectional search, one should know the goal state in advance.

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

Time Complexity: Time complexity of bidirectional search using BFS is O(bd).

Space Complexity: Space complexity of bidirectional search is O(bd).

Optimal: Bidirectional search is Optimal.

Uniform-cost Search Algorithm:

Uniform-cost search is a searching algorithm used for traversing a weighted tree or graph. This algorithm
comes into play when a different cost is available for each edge. The primary goal of the uniform-cost
search is to find a path to the goal node which has the lowest cumulative cost. Uniform-cost search expands
nodes according to their path costs form the root node. It can be used to solve any graph/tree where the
optimal cost is in demand. A uniform-cost search algorithm is implemented by the priority queue. It gives
maximum priority to the lowest cumulative cost. Uniform cost search is equivalent to BFS algorithm if the
path cost of all edges is the same

Advantages:

Uniform cost search is optimal because at every state the path with the least cost is chosen.

Disadvantages:
It does not care about the number of steps involve in searching and only concerned about path
cost. Due to which this algorithm may be stuck in an infinite loop.
Best first search

Greedy best-first search algorithm always selects the path which appears best at that moment. It is the
combination of depth-first search and breadth-first search algorithms. It uses the heuristic function and
search. Best-first search allows us to take the advantages of both algorithms. With the help of best-first
search, at each step, we can choose the most promising node. In the best first search algorithm, we
expand the node which is closest to the goal node and the closest cost is estimated by heuristic function,
i.e. f(n)= g(n).

Best first search algorithm:

o Step 1: Place the starting node into the OPEN list.

o Step 2: If the OPEN list is empty, Stop and return failure.

o Step 3: Remove the node n, from the OPEN list which has the lowest value of h(n), and places it
in the CLOSED list.
o Step 4: Expand the node n, and generate the successors of node n.

o Step 5: Check each successor of node n, and find whether any node is a goal node or not. If any
successor node is goal node, then return success and terminate the search, else proceed to Step 6.
o Step 6: For each successor node, algorithm checks for evaluation function f(n), and then check if
the node has been in either OPEN or CLOSED list. If the node has not been in both list, then add
it to the OPEN list.
o Step 7: Return to Step 2.

Time Complexity: The worst case time complexity of Greedy best first search is O(bm).
Space Complexity: The worst case space complexity of Greedy best first search is O(bm). Where, m is
the maximum depth of the search space.
Complete: Greedy best-first search is also incomplete, even if the given state space is finite.
Optimal: Greedy best first search algorithm is not optimal.

Iterative deepening algorithm

The iterative deepening algorithm is a combination of DFS and BFS algorithms. This search algorithm finds
out the best depth limit and does it by gradually increasing the limit until a goal is found.
This algorithm performs depth-first search up to a certain "depth limit", and it keeps increasing the depth
limit after each iteration until the goal node is found.
This Search algorithm combines the benefits of Breadth-first search's fast search and depth-first search's
memory efficiency.
The iterative search algorithm is useful uninformed search when search space is large, and depth of goal
node is unknown.
Completeness: This algorithm is complete is ifthe branching factor is finite.
Time Complexity: Let's suppose b is the branching factor and depth is d then the worst-case time
complexity is O(bd).
Space Complexity:The space complexity of IDDFS will be O(bd).
Informed Search
Informed search algorithms use domain knowledge. In an informed search, problem information is
available which can guide the search. Informed search strategies can find a solution more efficiently than
an uninformed search strategy. Informed search is also called a Heuristic search.

A heuristic is a way which might not always be guaranteed for best solutions but guaranteed to find a good
solution in reasonable time.

The informed search algorithm is more useful for large search space. Informed search algorithm uses the
idea of heuristic, so it is also called Heuristic search.

Heuristics function:

Heuristic is a function which is used in Informed Search, and it finds the most promising path. It takes the
current state of the agent as its input and produces the estimation of how close agent is from the goal. The
heuristic method, however, might not always give the best solution, but it guaranteed to find a good solution
in reasonable time. Heuristic function estimates how close a state is to the goal. It is represented by h(n), and
it calculates the cost of an optimal path between the pair of states. The value of the heuristic function is
always positive.

Pure Heuristic Search:

Pure heuristic search is the simplest form of heuristic search algorithms. It expands nodes based on their
heuristic value h(n). It maintains two lists, OPEN and CLOSED list. In the CLOSED list, it places those
nodes which have already expanded and in the OPEN list, it places nodes which have yet not been
expanded.

On each iteration, each node n with the lowest heuristic value is expanded and generates all its successors
and n is placed to the closed list. The algorithm continues unit a goal state is found.

In the informed search we will discuss two main algorithms which are given below:

o Best First Search Algorithm(Greedy search)

o A* Search Algorithm

Best First Search Algorithm(Greedy search)

Greedy best-first search algorithm always selects the path which appears best at that moment. It is the
combination of depth-first search and breadth-first search algorithms. It uses the heuristic function and
search. Best-first search allows us to take the advantages of both algorithms. With the help of best-first
search, at each step, we can choose the most promising node. In the best first search algorithm, we expand
the node which is closest to the goal node and the closest cost is estimated by heuristic function, i.e.

f(n)= g(n).

Were, h(n)= estimated cost from node n to the goal.

The greedy best first algorithm is implemented by the priority queue.

Best first search algorithm:

o Step 1: Place the starting node into the OPEN list.
o Step 2: If the OPEN list is empty, Stop and return failure.
o Step 3: Remove the node n, from the OPEN list which has the lowest value of h(n), and places it in
the CLOSED list.
o Step 4: Expand the node n, and generate the successors of node n.
o Step 5: Check each successor of node n, and find whether any node is a goal node or not. If any
successor node is goal node, then return success and terminate the search, else proceed to Step 6.
o Step 6: For each successor node, algorithm checks for evaluation function f(n), and then check if
the node has been in either OPEN or CLOSED list. If the node has not been in both list, then add it
to the OPEN list.
o Step 7: Return to Step 2.

Advantages:
o Best first search can switch between BFS and DFS by gaining the advantages of both the
algorithms.
o This algorithm is more efficient than BFS and DFS algorithms.

Disadvantages:
o It can behave as an unguided depth-first search in the worst case scenario.
o It can get stuck in a loop as DFS.
o This algorithm is not optimal.

Example:

Consider the below search problem, and we will traverse it using greedy best-first search. At each iteration,
each node is expanded using evaluation function f(n)=h(n) , which is given in the below table.
In this search example, we are using two lists which are OPEN and CLOSED Lists. Following are the
iteration for traversing the above example.

Expand the nodes of S and put in the CLOSED list

Initialization: Open [A, B], Closed [S]

Iteration 1: Open [A], Closed [S, B]

Iteration 2: Open [E, F, A], Closed [S, B]

: Open [E, A], Closed [S, B, F]

Iteration3: Open[I,G,E,A],Closed[S,B,F]
: Open [I, E, A], Closed [S, B, F, G]

Hence the final solution path will be: S----> B----->F----> G

Time Complexity: The worst case time complexity of Greedy best first search is O(bm).

Space Complexity: The worst case space complexity of Greedy best first search is O(b m). Where, m is the
maximum depth of the search space.

Complete: Greedy best-first search is also incomplete, even if the given state space is finite.

Optimal: Greedy best first search algorithm is not optimal.

2.) A* Search Algorithm:
A* search is the most commonly known form of best-first search. It uses heuristic function h(n), and cost to
reach the node n from the start state g(n). It has combined features of UCS and greedy best-first search, by
which it solve the problem efficiently. A* search algorithm finds the shortest path through the search space
using the heuristic function. This search algorithm expands less search tree and provides optimal result
faster. A* algorithm is similar to UCS except that it uses g(n)+h(n) instead of g(n).

In A* search algorithm, we use search heuristic as well as the cost to reach the node. Hence we can combine
both costs as following, and this sum is called as a fitness number.

Algorithm of A* search:
Step1: Place the starting node in the OPEN list.

Step 2: Check if the OPEN list is empty or not, if the list is empty then return failure and stops.

Step 3: Select the node from the OPEN list which has the smallest value of evaluation function (g+h), if
node n is goal node then return success and stop, otherwise

Step 4: Expand node n and generate all of its successors, and put n into the closed list. For each successor
n', check whether n' is already in the OPEN or CLOSED list, if not then compute evaluation function for n'
and place into Open list.

Step 5: Else if node n' is already in OPEN and CLOSED, then it should be attached to the back pointer
which reflects the lowest g(n') value.

Step 6: Return to Step 2.

Advantages:
o A* search algorithm is the best algorithm than other search algorithms.
o A* search algorithm is optimal and complete.
o This algorithm can solve very complex problems.

Disadvantages:
o It does not always produce the shortest path as it mostly based on heuristics and approximation.
o A* search algorithm has some complexity issues.
o The main drawback of A* is memory requirement as it keeps all generated nodes in the memory, so
it is not practical for various large-scale problems.
Example:
In this example, we will traverse the given graph using the A* algorithm. The heuristic value of all states is
given in the below table so we will calculate the f(n) of each state using the formula f(n)= g(n) + h(n), where
g(n) is the cost to reach any node from start state.
Here we will use OPEN and CLOSED list.

Solution:

Initialization: {(S, 5)}

Iteration1: {(S--> A, 4), (S-->G, 10)}

Iteration2: {(S--> A-->C, 4), (S--> A-->B, 7), (S-->G, 10)}

Iteration3: {(S--> A-->C--->G, 6), (S--> A-->C--->D, 11), (S--> A-->B, 7), (S-->G, 10)}

Iteration 4 will give the final result, as S--->A--->C--->G it provides the optimal path with cost 6.

Points to remember:

o A* algorithm returns the path which occurred first, and it does not search for all remaining paths.
o The efficiency of A* algorithm depends on the quality of heuristic.
o A* algorithm expands all nodes which satisfy the condition f(n)<="" li="">
Complete: A* algorithm is complete as long as:

o Branching factor is finite.

o Cost at every action is fixed.

Optimal: A* search algorithm is optimal if it follows below two conditions:

o Admissible: the first condition requires for optimality is that h(n) should be an admissible heuristic
for A* tree search. An admissible heuristic is optimistic in nature.
o Consistency: Second required condition is consistency for only A* graph-search.

If the heuristic function is admissible, then A* tree search will always find the least cost path.

Time Complexity: The time complexity of A* search algorithm depends on heuristic function, and the
number of nodes expanded is exponential to the depth of solution d. So the time complexity is O(b^d),
where b is the branching factor.

Space Complexity: The space complexity of A* search algorithm is O(b^d)

Recursive Best-first Search (RBFS)

1. 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.
2. The algorithm is shown in below figure.
3. 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.
4. 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.

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

The algorithm for recursive best-first search

RBFS Evaluation:

a. RBFS is a bit more efficient than IDA*

i. Still excessive node generation (mind changes)
b. Like A*, optimal if h(n) is admissible
c. Space complexity is O(bd).
i. IDA* retains only one single number (the current f-cost limit)
d. Time complexity difficult to characterize
i. Depends on accuracy if h(n) and how often best path changes.
e. IDA* en RBFS suffer from too little memory.

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

Example: 8 Puzzle

Consider the following 8-puzzle problem where we have a start state and a goal state. Our task is to slide the
tiles of the current/start state and place it in an order followed in the goal state. There can be four moves
either left, right, up, or down. There can be several ways to convert the current/start state to the goal state,
but, we can use a heuristic function h(n) to solve the problem more efficiently.

A heuristic function for the 8-puzzle problem is defined below:

h(n)=Number of tiles out of position.
So, there is total of three tiles out of position i.e., 6,5 and 4. Do not count the empty tile present in the goal
state). i.e. h(n)=3. Now, we require to minimize the value of h(n) =0.
We can construct a state-space tree to minimize the h(n) value to 0, as shown below:
 It is seen from the above state space tree that the goal state is minimized from h(n)=3 to h(n)=0. However,
we can create and use several heuristic functions as per the reqirement. It is also clear from the above
example that a heuristic function h(n) can be defined as the information required to solve a given problem
more efficiently. The information can be related to the nature of the state, cost of transforming from one
state to another, goal node characterstics, etc., which is expressed as a heuristic function.

Properties of a Heuristic search Algorithm

Use of heuristic function in a heuristic search algorithm leads to following properties of a heuristic search
algorithm:
• Admissible Condition: An algorithm is said to be admissible, if it returns an optimal solution.
• Completeness: An algorithm is said to be complete, if it terminates with a solution (if the solution exists).
• Dominance Property: If there are two admissible heuristic
algorithms A1 and A2 having h1 and h2 heuristic functions, then A1 is said to dominate A2 if h1 is better
than h2 for all the values of node n.
• Optimality Property: If an algorithm is complete, admissible, and dominating other algorithms, it will be
the best one and will definitely give an optimal solution.

The Effective Branching factor

a. 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
*
b. For example,if A finds a solution at depth 5 using 52 nodes,then effective branching
factor is 1.92.
c. A well designed heuristic would have a value of b* close to 1,allowing failru large
problems to be solved.
d. 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.
e. The following table gives the average number of nodes expanded by each strategy and
i. the effective branching factor.
f. The results suggest that h2 is better than h1,and is far better than using iterative deepening
search.
g. For a solution length of 14,A* with h2 is 30,000 times more efficient than uninformed
iterative deepening search.
 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.

Hill Climbing Algorithm in Artificial Intelligence

o Hill climbing algorithm is a local search algorithm which continuously moves in the direction of
increasing elevation/value to find the peak of the mountain or best solution to the problem. It
terminates when it reaches a peak value where no neighbor has a higher value.
o Hill climbing algorithm is a technique which is used for optimizing the mathematical problems. One
of the widely discussed examples of Hill climbing algorithm is Traveling-salesman Problem in
which we need to minimize the distance traveled by the salesman.
o It is also called greedy local search as it only looks to its good immediate neighbor state and not
beyond that.
o A node of hill climbing algorithm has two components which are state and value.
o Hill Climbing is mostly used when a good heuristic is available.
o In this algorithm, we don't need to maintain and handle the search tree or graph as it only keeps a
single current state.

Features of Hill Climbing:

Following are some main features of Hill Climbing Algorithm:

o Generate and Test variant: Hill Climbing is the variant of Generate and Test method. The
Generate and Test method produce feedback which helps to decide which direction to move in the
search space.
o Greedy approach: Hill-climbing algorithm search moves in the direction which optimizes the cost.
o No backtracking: It does not backtrack the search space, as it does not remember the previous
states.
State-space Diagram for Hill Climbing:

The state-space landscape is a graphical representation of the hill-climbing algorithm which is showing a
graph between various states of algorithm and Objective function/Cost.

On Y-axis we have taken the function which can be an objective function or cost function, and state-space
on the x-axis. If the function on Y-axis is cost then, the goal of search is to find the global minimum and
local minimum. If the function of Y-axis is Objective function, then the goal of the search is to find the
global maximum and local maximum.

Different regions in the state space landscape:

Local Maximum: Local maximum is a state which is better than its neighbor states, but there is also
another state which is higher than it.

Global Maximum: Global maximum is the best possible state of state space landscape. It has the highest
value of objective function.

Current state: It is a state in a landscape diagram where an agent is currently present.

Flat local maximum: It is a flat space in the landscape where all the neighbor states of current states have
the same value.

Shoulder: It is a plateau region which has an uphill edge.

Types of Hill Climbing Algorithm:

o Simple hill Climbing:
o Steepest-Ascent hill-climbing:
o Stochastic hill Climbing:

1. Simple Hill Climbing:

Simple hill climbing is the simplest way to implement a hill climbing algorithm. It only evaluates the
neighbor node state at a time and selects the first one which optimizes current cost and set it as a
current state. It only checks it's one successor state, and if it finds better than the current state, then move
else be in the same state. This algorithm has the following features:

o Less time consuming

 o Less optimal solution and the solution is not guaranteed

Algorithm for Simple Hill Climbing:

o Step 1: Evaluate the initial state, if it is goal state then return success and Stop.
o Step 2: Loop Until a solution is found or there is no new operator left to apply.
o Step 3: Select and apply an operator to the current state.
o Step 4: Check new state:
1. If it is goal state, then return success and quit.
2. Else if it is better than the current state then assign new state as a current state.
3. Else if not better than the current state, then return to step2.
o Step 5: Exit.

2. Steepest-Ascent hill climbing:

The steepest-Ascent algorithm is a variation of simple hill climbing algorithm. This algorithm examines all
the neighboring nodes of the current state and selects one neighbor node which is closest to the goal state.
This algorithm consumes more time as it searches for multiple neighbors

Algorithm for Steepest-Ascent hill climbing:

o Step 1: Evaluate the initial state, if it is goal state then return success and stop, else make current
state as initial state.
o Step 2: Loop until a solution is found or the current state does not change.
1. Let SUCC be a state such that any successor of the current state will be better than it.
2. For each operator that applies to the current state:
I. Apply the new operator and generate a new state.
II. Evaluate the new state.
III. If it is goal state, then return it and quit, else compare it to the SUCC.
IV. If it is better than SUCC, then set new state as SUCC.
V. If the SUCC is better than the current state, then set current state to SUCC.
o Step 5: Exit.

3. Stochastic hill climbing:

Stochastic hill climbing does not examine for all its neighbor before moving. Rather, this search algorithm
selects one neighbor node at random and decides whether to choose it as a current state or examine another
state.

Problems in Hill Climbing Algorithm:

1. Local Maximum: A local maximum is a peak state in the landscape which is better than each of its
neighboring states, but there is another state also present which is higher than the local maximum.

Solution: Backtracking technique can be a solution of the local maximum in state space landscape. Create a
list of the promising path so that the algorithm can backtrack the search space and explore other paths as
well.
2. Plateau: A plateau is the flat area of the search space in which all the neighbor states of the current state
contains the same value, because of this algorithm does not find any best direction to move. A hill-climbing
search might be lost in the plateau area.

Solution: The solution for the plateau is to take big steps or very little steps while searching, to solve the
problem. Randomly select a state which is far away from the current state so it is possible that the algorithm
could find non-plateau region.

3. Ridges: A ridge is a special form of the local maximum. It has an area which is higher than its
surrounding areas, but itself has a slope, and cannot be reached in a single move.

Solution: With the use of bidirectional search, or by moving in different directions, we can improve this
problem.
 Simulated Annealing:
A hill-climbing algorithm which never makes a move towards a lower value guaranteed to be incomplete
because it can get stuck on a local maximum. And if algorithm applies a random walk, by moving a
successor, then it may complete but not efficient. Simulated Annealing is an algorithm which yields both
efficiency and completeness.

In mechanical term Annealing is a process of hardening a metal or glass to a high temperature then cooling
gradually, so this allows the metal to reach a low-energy crystalline state. The same process is used in
simulated annealing in which the algorithm picks a random move, instead of picking the best move. If the
random move improves the state, then it follows the same path. Otherwise, the algorithm follows the path
which has a probability of less than 1 or it moves downhill and chooses another path.

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

Local Search Algorithms and Optimization Problem

The informed and uninformed search expands the nodes systematically in two ways:
• keeping different paths in the memory and
• selecting the best suitable path,
Which leads to a solution state required to reach the goal node. But beyond these “classical search
algorithms,” we have some “local search algorithms” where the path cost does not matters, and only focus
on solution-state needed to reach the goal node.
A local search algorithm completes its task by traversing on a single current node rather than multiple paths
and following the neighbors of that node generally.
Although local search algorithms are not systematic, still they have the following two advantages:
• Local search algorithms use a very little or constant amount of memory as they operate only on a single
path.
• Most often, they find a reasonable solution in large or infinite state spaces where the classical or systematic
algorithms do not work.

PURE OPTIMIZED PROBLEM

A pure optimization problem is one where all the nodes can give a solution. But the target is to find the best
state out of all according to the objective function. Unfortunately, the pure optimization problem fails to
find high-quality solutions to reach the goal state from the current state.
 An objective function is a function whose value is either minimized or maximized in different contexts of
the optimization problems. In the case of search algorithms, an objective function can be the path cost for
reaching the goal node, etc.

Working of a Local search algorithm

Consider the below state-space landscape having both:

• Location: It is defined by the state.
• Elevation: It is defined by the value of the objective function or heuristic cost function.

The local search algorithm explores the above landscape by finding the following two points:

• Global Minimum: If the elevation corresponds to the cost, then the task is to find the lowest valley, which
is known as Global Minimum.
• Global Maxima: If the elevation corresponds to an objective function, then it finds the highest peak which
is called as Global Maxima. It is the highest point in the valley.
We will understand the working of these points better in Hill-climbing search.

Below are some different types of local searches:

• Hill-climbing Search
• Simulated Annealing
• Local Beam Search

Online search agents

Online search is a necessary idea for unknown environments, where the agent does not know what states
exist or what its actions do. In this state of ignorance, the agent faces an exploration problem and must use
its actions as experiments in order to learn enough to make deliberation
The canonical example of online search is a robot that is placed in a new building and must explore it to
build a map that it can use for getting from A to B. Methods for escaping from labyrinths—required
knowledge for aspiring heroes of antiquity—are also examples of online search algorithms
Spatial exploration is not the only form of exploration, however.Consider a newborn baby: it has many
possible actions but knows the outcomes of none of them, and it has experienced only a few of the possible
states that it can reach. The baby’s gradual discovery of how the world works is, in part, an online search
process.
Online search problems

An online search problem must be solved by an agent executing actions, rather than by pure
computation. We assume a deterministic and fully observable environment (Chapter 17 relaxes these
assumptions), but we stipulate that the agent knows only the following:

• ACTIONS(s), which returns a list of actions allowed in state s;

• The step-cost function c(s, a, s )—note that this cannot be used until the agent knows
that s is the outcome; and
• GOAL-TEST(s).
Note in particular that the agent cannot determine RESULT(s, a) except by actually being in s and doing a.
For example, in the maze problem shown in Figure 4.19, the agent does not know that going Up from (1,1)
leads to (1,2); nor, having done that, does it know that going Down will take it back to (1,1). This degree of
ignorance can be reduced in some applications—for example, a robot explorer might know how its
movement actions work and be ignorant only of the locations of obstacles