CS 331: Artificial Intelligence

State Space Search

Instructor: Naveed Anwer Butt

Department of Computer Science
University of Gujrat,
 Today
 Uninformed Search Methods
 Depth-First Search
 Breadth-First Search
 Uniform-Cost Search
Search Problems
 Search Problems
 A search problem consists of:

 A state space
Set of possible configurations
where all Pacman is and where
the dots

 A successor function “N”, 1.0

(with actions, costs)

Consequences states will be “E”, 1.0

 A start state and a goal test

 A solution is a sequence of actions (a plan) which

transforms the start state to a goal state
 Search Problems Are Models
 The beauty of having this kind of interface up here is that once we agree to an interface
like this, any real world problem we can cast this way, if we then have an algorithm
that can work with this interface, that algorithm can solve that real world problem.
Example: Traveling in Romania

 State space:
 Cities
 Successor function:
 Roads: Go to adjacent city with
cost = distance
 Start state:
 Arad
 Goal test:
 Is state == Bucharest?

 Solution?
 What’s in a State Space?
The world state includes every last detail of the environment

A search state keeps only the details needed for planning (abstraction)

 Problem: Pathing  Problem: Eat-All-Dots

 States: (x,y) location  States: {(x,y), dot booleans}
 Actions: NSEW  Actions: NSEW
 Successor: update location  Successor: update location
only and possibly a dot boolean
 Goal test: is (x,y)=END  Goal test: dots all false
 State Space Sizes?

 World state:
 Agent positions: 120
 Food count: 30 (food or not food)
 Ghost positions: 12
 Agent facing: NSEW

 How many
 World states? Product of all
=120x(230)x(122)x4
 States for pathing?
120
 States for eat-all-dots?
120x(230)
 Quiz: Safe Passage

 Problem: eat all dots while keeping the ghosts perma-scared

 What does the state space have to specify?
 Answer
 agent position,
 dot Boolean
 power pellet Booleans
 remaining scared time ghost
 Pac-Man location.
State Space Graphs and Search Trees
 State Space Graphs

 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
 State Space Graphs

 State space graph: A mathematical

a G
representation of a search problem
 Nodes are (abstracted) world configurations b c
 Arcs represent successors (action results) e
 The goal test is a set of goal nodes (maybe only one) d f
S h
 In a search graph, each state occurs only once! p r
q

 We can rarely build this full graph in memory

Tiny search graph for a tiny search
(it’s too big), but it’s a useful idea problem
 Search Trees
This is now / start
“N”, 1.0 “E”, 1.0

Possible futures

 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
 The search tree will have multiple occurrences of that same state. (much bigger than SSG)
 For most problems, we can never actually build the whole tree
 Different plans that achieve the same state, will be different nodes in the tree.
 State Space Graphs vs. Search Trees

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

a G graph. e p
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 G a
little as possible.
a
Quiz: State Space Graphs vs. Search Trees

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

S G

Important: Lots of repeated structure in the search tree!

 Tree Search

So let's look at an algorithm on how to build up this search tree in a very incremental way, just enough to
find a solution and then stop and return the solution.
Search Example: Romania
 Searching with a Search Tree

 Search:
 Expand out potential plans (tree nodes)
 Maintain a fringe of partial plans under consideration
 Try to expand as few tree nodes as possible
 Tree Search Algorithm
 Foundation of our next Lecture
 1: Initialize your search tree with just the initial state of the problem.
 2: You check If there are no candidates for expansion--what's a candidate for expansion?
 You look at all the leaves of your search tree. Those are all candidates for expansion.
 If there are a non-zero number of leaves, that means you have candidates for expansion.
 If there are none of them, that means you only have dead ends left in your search tree, and
you're done, and you didn't find a solution.
 But if there are candidates, leaf nodes, then we pick one according to some strategy.
 We still have to determine that strategy, but will have many options, and somehow we'll pick one.
 If that node is a plan that ends up in one of the goals states, then you return the corresponding solution,
and you're done.
 If not, then you call the successor function on the last state on that node, and expand from there, and go
back around.
General Tree Search Algorithm

 Important ideas:
 Fringe
 which is a set of leaf nodes that are waiting to be
expanded.
 Expansion
 Exploration strategy
 Which one of the elements in the fringe are you going to
pick first to expand?
 Main question: which fringe nodes to explore?
Example: Tree Search
a G
b c
e
d f
S h
p q r
Depth-First Search
 Depth-First Search
Strategy: expand a a G
deepest node first b c

Implementation: d
e
f
Fringe is a LIFO stack S h
p q r

d e p

b c e h r q

a a h r p q f

p q f q c G

q c G a

a
Search Algorithm Properties
 Search Algorithm Properties
 Complete: Guaranteed to find a solution if one exists?
 Optimal: Guaranteed to find the least cost path?
 Time complexity?
 Space complexity? b
1 node
… b nodes

 Cartoon of search tree: b2 nodes

 b is the branching factor m tiers
 m is the maximum depth
 solutions at various depths
bm nodes
 Number of nodes in entire tree?
 1 + b + b2 + …. bm = O(bm)
 Depth-First Search (DFS) Properties
 What nodes DFS expand?
 Some left prefix of the tree. 1 node
b
 Could process the whole tree! … b nodes
 If m is finite, takes time O(bm) b2 nodes
m tiers
 How much space does the fringe take?
 Only has siblings on path to root, so O(bm)

 Is it complete? bm nodes
 m could be infinite, so only if we prevent
cycles (more later)

 Is it optimal?
 No, it finds the “leftmost” solution,
regardless of depth or cost
Breadth-First Search
 Breadth-First Search
Strategy: expand a a G
shallowest node first b c
Implementation: Fringe e
d f
is a FIFO queue S h
p q r

d e p
Search
b c e h r q
Tiers
a a h r p q f

p q f q c G

q c G a

a
 Breadth-First Search (BFS) Properties
 What nodes does BFS expand?
 Processes all nodes above shallowest solution 1 node
b
 Let depth of shallowest solution be s … b nodes
s tiers
 Search takes time O(bs) b2 nodes

 How much space does the fringe take? bs nodes

 Has roughly the last tier, so O(bs)

 Is it complete? bm nodes
 Does it always find a solution if one exists?
 s must be finite if a solution exists, so yes!

 Is it optimal?
 Only if costs are all 1 (more on costs later)
Quiz: DFS vs BFS
 Quiz: DFS vs BFS

 When will BFS outperform DFS?

 When will DFS outperform BFS?

[Demo: dfs/bfs maze water (L2D6)]

Video of Demo Maze Water DFS/BFS (part 1)
Video of Demo Maze Water DFS/BFS (part 2)
 Iterative Deepening
 Idea: get DFS’s space advantage with BFS’s
time / shallow-solution advantages b
 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. …..

 Isn’t that wastefully redundant?

 Generally most work happens in the lowest
level searched, so not so bad!
 Cost-Sensitive 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
 Uniform Cost Search
2 a G
Strategy: expand a b c
cheapest node first: 1 8 2
2 e
Fringe is a priority queue 3 d f
9 2
(priority: cumulative cost) S h 8
1
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

q 11 c G 10 a

a
 Uniform Cost Search (UCS) Properties
 What nodes does UCS expand?
 Processes all nodes with cost less than cheapest solution!
b c1
 If that solution costs C* and arcs cost at least  , then the …
“effective depth” is roughly C*/ c2
C*/ “tiers”
 Takes time O(b ) (exponential in effective depth)
C*/ 
c3

 How much space does the fringe take?

 Has roughly the last tier, so O(bC*/)

 Is it complete?
 Assuming best solution has a finite cost and minimum arc cost
is positive, yes!

 Is it optimal?
 Yes! (Proof next lecture via A*)
 Uniform Cost Issues
 Remember: UCS explores increasing cost c1
…
contours c2
c3

 The good: UCS is complete and optimal!

 The bad:
 Explores options in every “direction”
 No information about goal location
Start Goal

 We’ll fix that soon! [Demo: empty grid UCS (L2D5)]

[Demo: maze with deep/shallow
water DFS/BFS/UCS (L2D7)]
Video of Demo Empty UCS
Video of Demo Maze with Deep/Shallow Water --- DFS, BFS, or UCS? (part 1)
Video of Demo Maze with Deep/Shallow Water --- DFS, BFS, or UCS? (part 2)
Video of Demo Maze with Deep/Shallow Water --- DFS, BFS, or UCS? (part 3)
 The One Queue
 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)
 Practically, for DFS and BFS, you can
avoid the log(n) overhead from an
actual priority queue, by using stacks
and queues
 Can even code one implementation
that takes a variable queuing object
 Search and Models

 Search operates over

models of the world
 The agent doesn’t
actually try all the plans
out in the real world!
 Planning is all “in
simulation”
 Your search is only as
good as your models…
Search Gone Wrong?
 References
 Introduction to AI- CS188
 Berkeley University,USA
 http://ai.berkeley.edu
• Introduction to Artificial Intelligence – CS331
• Prof. Mian Muhammad Awais
 Lahore University of Lahore, LUMS Pakistan
 http://suraj.lums.edu.pk/~cs331w04/