3 Plan

๏ Agents to solve problems

•Types of problem
•Problem formulation

๏ Sample search problems

๏ Problem solving by searching

• Breadth-First Search
• Depth-First Search
• Uniform-Cost Search
Agents to Solve Problems
5 Problem-Solving Agents

๏ Problem-Solving Agent is a Goal-Based Agent that decides what to do by finding sequences of

actions that lead to desirable states.

๏ The computational process it undertakes is called search.

๏ Problem-solving agents use atomic representations: states of the world are considered as
wholes
•Planning agents use factored or structured representations of states

๏ Informed v.s. Uninformed algorithm: whether the agent can estimate how far it is from the
goal
6 Example: Travel in Romania

๏ On vacation in Romania; currently in Arad.

๏ Formulate the goal:

•Be in Bucharest

๏ Formulate the problem:

•States: be in different cities
•Actions: driving between cities

๏ Find a solution:
• Sequence of cities, e.g.,
Arad, Sibiu, Fagaras, Bucharest
7 Problem-Solving Agents
8 Problem formulation
A search problem is defined by:

1. State space
A set of possible states the environment can be in.

2. Initial state
Where the agent starts in

3. Goal test
Usually a condition, sometimes the description
of a state

4. Successor function
Include action and cost: describe how state changes
with an action, and the cost of applying action a to
transit from state s to s’

A solution is a sequence of actions (a plan) which transforms the start state to a goal state
9 What is in a State Space?
10 Abstraction

๏ Our formulation of the problem (e.g., getting to Bucharest) is a model—an abstract

mathematical description—and not the real thing.

๏ The process of removing detail from a representation is called abstraction.

Seven Bridges of Königsberg

Go around the city taking each bridge once and only once?
In 1735, Euler showed that this is impossible using graph theory and topology.
Solution in graph theory: for this to be possible, each node must have an even degree.
11 Example: Route finding

Problem: nd path from Arad to Bucharest

fi
12 Example: Route finding

Actions
13 Example: Route finding

๏ Formulate goal:
•Be in Bucharest

๏ Formulate problem:
•States: various cities
•Actions: go to adjacent city
•Goal test: whether in Bucharest
•Path cost: distance

๏ Find solution:
• Sequence of cities
• e.g., Arad, Sibiu, Fagaras, Bucharest
Formulate tasks as searching
 Map?
Where is the

State Space Graphs

and Search Trees
16 State space graph

๏ State space graph: A mathematical representation of a search problem

• Nodes are (abstracted) world configurations
• Arcs represent successors (action results)
• The goal test is a set of goal nodes (maybe only one)

๏ In a state space graph, each state occurs only once!

๏ We can rarely build this full graph in memory (it’s too big), but it’s a useful idea
17 State space graph

Tiny state space graph for a tiny

search problem

State space graph for Pacman:

eat all the dots
18 Search tree

๏ A search tree:
•A “what if” tree of plans and their outcomes
•The start state is the root node
•Children correspond to successors
•Nodes show states, but correspond to PLANS that achieve those states
•For most problems, we can never actually build the whole tree
19 State State Spacevs.
Space Graphs Graphs vs. Search
Search Trees Trees

Each NODE in in
State Space Graph the search tree is Search Tree
an entire PATH in
the state space S

G graph. e p
a d
b c
b c e h r q
e
d f a a h r p q f
S h We construct both
on demand – and p q f q c G
p q r
we construct as q c a
G
little as possible.
a
20 Quiz:
State State
Space Space
Graphs Graphs
vs. Search vs.
Trees Search Trees

Consider this 4-state graph: How big is its search tree (from S)?

b
G
?
21 Quiz:
State State
Space Space
Graphs Graphs
vs. Search vs.
Trees Search Trees

Consider this 4-state graph: How big is its search tree (from S)?

S G

b
22 Quiz:
State State
Space Space
Graphs Graphs
vs. Search vs.
Trees Search Trees

Consider this 4-state graph: How big is its search tree (from S)?

a s
a b
S G
b G a G
b a G b G

… …

Important: Lots of repeated structure in the search tree!

Sample Search Problems
24 Example: Vacuum World

๏ Formulate problem:
• States: ?
• Actions: ?
• Goal test: ?
• Path cost: ?
25 Example: Vacuum World

๏ Formulate problem:
•States: dirt and robot location
•Actions: left (L), right (R), suck (S)
•Goal test: no dirt at all locations
•Path cost: 1 per action
26 Example: The 8-puzzle

๏ Formulate problem:
•States: location of tiles
•Actions: move blank left, right, up, down
•Goal test: given goal state
•Path cost: 1 per move
27 Example: The 8-puzzle
9! / 2
28 Example: Robotic Assembly

๏ Formulate problem:
•States: real-valued coordinates of robot
joint angles parts of the object to be
assembled
•Actions: continuous motions of robot
joints
•Goal test: complete assembly
•
•
Path cost: time to execute
29 Example: Robotic Assembly
30 Example: The 8-Queens

๏ Formulate problem:
•
States: ?
•
Actions: ?
•
Goal test: ?

๏
•
Path cost: ?

Place 8 queens in a chessboard so that

no two queens are in the same row,
column, or diagonal.
31 Example: The 8-Queens

๏ Formulation 1:
•States: Any arrangement of 0 to 8
queens on the board.
•Actions: Add a queen in any square.
•Goal test: 8 queens on the board, none
attacked.
•Path cost: 1 per move.

! 648 states with 8 queens Place 8 queens in a chessboard so that

no two queens are in the same row,
column, or diagonal.
32 Example: The 8-Queens

๏ Formulation 2:
•States: Any arrangement of k = 0 to 8
queens in the k leftmost columns with
none attacked.
•Actions: Add a queen to any square in the
leftmost empty column such that it is not
attacked by any other queen.
•Goal test: 8 queens on the board, none
attacked Place 8 queens in a chessboard so that
•
•
Path cost: 1 per move no two queens are in the same row,
column, or diagonal.
! 2067 states
33 Exercise: River Crossing
34 Answer: River Crossing

๏ State space S: all valid configurations

• Initial state: I = {(CSDF,)}
• Goal state: G = {(,CSDF)}
• Actions: states reachable in one step from
S
• Succs((CSDF,)) = {(CD, SF)}
• Succs((CD, SF)) = {(CD, FS), (D, CFS),
(C, DFS)}
• Path cost: 1 for each transition
35 Answer: River Crossing

A directed graph in state space

36 Other example problems

๏ Travelling Salesperson Problem (TSP)

•Each city must be visited exactly once – find the
shortest tour

๏ VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) Layout

•Given schematic diagram comprising components
(chips, resistors, capacitors, etc) and interconnections
(wires), find optimal way to place components on a
printed circuit board, under the constraint that only a
small number of wire layers are available (and wires
on a given layer cannot cross !)

๏ Robot navigation
•A generalization fo the route-finding problem.
Problem Solving by Searching
38 Searching as problem solving technique
Problem solving by searching:

๏ Searching is the process of looking for the solution of a problem through a set of possibilities
(state space).

๏ Search conditions include :

•Current state - where one is;
•Goal state - the solution reached; check whether it has been reached;
•Cost of obtaining the solution.

๏ The Solution is a path from the current state to the goal state.
39 Searching as problem solving technique
Process of Searching:

๏ Searching proceeds as follows:

•Check the current state;
•Execute allowable actions to move to the next state;
•Check if the new state is the solution state; if it is not, then the new state becomes the
current state and the process is repeated until a solution is found or the state space is
exhausted.
40 Explore the search tree to find solution(s)

Assumptions in basic search:

๏ The environment is Static

๏ The environment is Discretizable

๏ The environment is Observable

๏ The actions are Deterministic

41 General tree search

๏ Basic idea:
•offline, simulated exploration of state space by generating successors of already-explored
states (a.k.a.~expanding states)

๏ Main question: which fringe (or frontier) nodes to explore?

42 Example: Route finding

Problem: nd path from Arad to Bucharest

fi
43 Example: Route finding
44 Example: Route finding
45 Example: Route finding
46 Implementation: general tree search
47 State vs. Node

๏ A state is a representation of a physical configuration

๏ A node is a data structure constituting part of a search tree, includes state, parent node, action, path
cost g(x), depth

๏ The Expand function creates new nodes, filling in the various fields and using the
SuccessorFn of the problem to create the corresponding states.
48 Fringe (Frontier)

๏ If you're performing a tree (or graph) search, then the set of all nodes at the end of all visited
paths is called the fringe, frontier or border.

๏ Implemented as a queue FRINGE.

• INSERT(node,FRINGE)
• REMOVE(FRINGE)

๏ The ordering of the nodes in FRINGE defines the search strategy.

Fringe
49 Fringe (Frontier)
50 Search strategies

๏ A search strategy is defined by picking the order of node expansion

๏ Strategies are evaluated along the following dimensions:

• Completeness: Is the algorithm guaranteed to find a solution when there is one, and to
correctly report failure when there is not?
• Cost optimality: Does it find a solution with the lowest path cost of all solutions?
• Time complexity: How long does it take to find a solution? This can be measured in seconds,
or more abstractly by the number of states and actions considered.
• Space complexity: How much memory is needed to perform the search?

๏ Time and space complexity are measured in terms of

• b: maximum branching factor of the search tree
• d: depth of the least-cost solution
• m: maximum depth of the state space (may be ∞)
51 Uninformed vs. Informed Strategies

๏ Uninformed (or blind) strategies have no clue about how close a state is to the goal(s).

๏ Informed (or heuristic) strategies exploits such information to assess that one node is “more
promising” than another.
52 Uninformed Strategies
Uninformed search strategies use only the information available in the problem definition.

๏ Breadth-First Search

๏ Depth-First Search

๏ Uniform-Cost Search

๏ Depth-Limited Search

๏ Iterative Deepening Search

Breadth-First Search
54 Breadth-First Search (BFS)

๏ BFS first visit all the nodes at the same depth first and then proceed visiting nodes at a deeper
depth (strategy: expand a shallowest node first)
55 Breadth-First Search

๏ A node can be reached from different nodes using

different paths

๏ But we need to visit each node only once.

๏ So, we mark each node differently into 3 categories -

unvisited, discovered and complete.
•Initially, all nodes are unvisited. After visiting a node
for the first time, it becomes discovered.
•A node is complete if all of its adjacent nodes have
been visited.
•Thus, all the adjacent nodes of a complete node are
either discovered or complete.

https://www.codesdope.com/course/algorithms-bfs/
56 Breadth-First Search

๏ Thus after visiting a node, we first visit all its sibling and then their children.

๏ We can use a first in first out (FIFO) queue to achieve this (Fringe is a FIFO queue).

๏ Starting from the source, we can put all its adjacent nodes in a queue
57 Breadth-First Search
58 Breadth-First Search (BFS) Properties

๏ Is it complete?
• Yes. d must be finite if a solution exists.

๏ Is it optimal?
• Only if costs are all 1. d

๏ Search time? d
• shallowest solution

๏ Fringe space?
• Has roughly the last tier, so
Depth-First Search
60 Depth-First Search (DFS)

๏ DFS first explores the depth of the graph before the breadth i.e., it traverses along the
increasing depth and upon reaching the end, it backtracks to the node from which it was started
and then do the same with the sibling node.
61 Depth-First Search

๏ Similar to the BFS, we also mark the vertices white, gray and black to represent unvisited,
discovered and complete respectively.

๏ Fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., a stack that put successors at front.

https://www.codesdope.com/course/algorithms-dfs/
62 Depth-First Search
63 Depth-First Search (DFS) Properties

๏ Is it complete?
• m could be infinite, so only if we prevent
cycles

๏ Is it optimal?
• No, it finds the “leftmost” solution,
regardless of depth or cost

๏ Search time?
•O(bm) Terrible if m is much larger than d,
but if solutions are dense, may be much
faster than breadth-first.

๏ Fringe space?
• Only has siblings on path to root, so O(bm),
i.e., linear space!
64 Exercise: DFS vs. BFS

๏ When will BFS outperform DFS?

๏ When will DFS outperform BFS?

65 Depth-Limited Search

๏ = depth-first search with depth limit L, i.e., nodes at depth L have no successors
66 Iterative Deepening Search

๏ Idea: get DFS’s space advantage with BFS’s time / shallow-solution advantages
• Run a DFS with depth limit 1. If no solution...
• Run a DFS with depth limit 2. If no solution...
• Run a DFS with depth limit 3. .....
67 Cost-Sensitive
Cost-Sensitive Search Search

a GOAL
2 2
b c
3
2
1 8
2 e
3 d
f
9 8 2
START h
1 4 2

p 4 r
15
q

BFS finds the shortest path in terms of number of actions.

It does not find the least-cost path. We will now cover
a similar algorithm which does find the least-cost path.
Uniform-Cost Search
69 Uniform
Uniform-Cost Search Cost Search
(Dijkstra’s algorithm)
2 a G
Strategy: expand a b c
cheapest node first: 1 8 2
2 e
3 d f
Fringe is a priority queue 9 2
S h 8 1
(priority: cumulative cost)
1 p q r
15

S 0

d 3 e 9 p 1

b 4 c e 5 h 17 r 11 q 16
11
Cost a 6 a h 13 r 7 p q f
contours
p q f 8 q c G
Equivalent to breadth- rst
q 11 c G 10 a if step costs all equal.

a
fi
70 Properties of Uniform-Cost Search

๏ Complete? Yes, if step cost ≥ ε > 0 (ε is the lower

bound of each action), it will never getting caught
going down a single infinite path

๏ Time? # of nodes with g ≤ cost of optimal solution,

O(bceiling(C*/ ε)) where C* is the cost of the optimal
solution.

๏ Space? # of nodes with g ≤ cost of optimal solution,

O(bceiling(C*/ ε)).

๏ Optimal? Yes – nodes expanded in increasing order

of g(n).

๏
71 Uniform-Cost Search Issues

๏ Remember: UCS explores increasing cost contours

๏ The good: UCS is complete and optimal!

๏ The bad:
•Explores options in every “direction”
•No information about goal location

๏ We’ll fix that soon!

72 Summary of Algorithms
73 Summary

๏ All these search algorithms are the same except for fringe strategies
•Conceptually, all fringes are priority queues (i.e. collections of nodes with attached priorities)
•Can even code one implementation that takes a variable queuing object