Chapter 3

Solving problems by searching

 Search Algorithms in Artificial Intelligence
 Search algorithms are one of the most
important areas of Artificial Intelligence.
The general concept of 'searching' is about
looking for something. In computer science,
searching techniques are strategies that
look for solutions to a problem in a search
space. The solutions or 'goal states' could
sometimes be an object, a goal, a sub-goal or
a path to the searched item.
 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.
 Search Algorithm Terminologies
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:
Search Space: Search space represents a set
of possible solutions, which a system may have.
Start State: It is a state from where agent
begins the search.
Goal test: It is a function which observe the
current state and returns whether the goal
state is achieved or not.
 Cont..
 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.
Actions: It gives the description of all the
available actions to the agent.
Transition model: A description of what each
action do, can be represented as a transition
model.
Path Cost: It is a function which assigns a
numeric cost to each path.
Solution: It is an action sequence which leads
from the start node to the goal node.
Optimal Solution: If a solution has the lowest cost
among all solutions.
 properties of Search Algorithms
There are 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.
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.
 Types of Search Algorithms
Based on the search problems we can classify the search
algorithms into
A. uninformed (Blind search) search and
B. informed search (Heuristic search) algorithms.
 Uninformed Search Algorithms
 Uninformed search is a class of general-purpose search algorithms which

operates in brute force-way.

 Uninformed search algorithms do not have additional information about state

or search space other than how to traverse the tree, so it is also called blind
search.
 There are the various types of uninformed search algorithms:

 Breadth-first Search
 Depth-first Search
 Depth-limited Search
 Iterative deepening depth-first search
 Uniform cost search
 Bidirectional Search
 
Search Algorithms in Artificial Intelligence
Search algorithms are one of the most
important areas of Artificial Intelligence.
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.
 Cont..
Breadth-first Search:
Breadth-first search is the most common search strategy
for traversing a tree or graph. This algorithm searches
breadthwise in a tree or graph, so it is called breadth-first
search.
BFS algorithm starts searching from the root node of the
tree and expands all successor node at the current level
before moving to nodes of next level.
The breadth-first search algorithm is an example of a
general-graph search algorithm.
Breadth-first search implemented using FIFO queue data
structure.
 Cont..
Advantages of Breadth-first Search
• BFS will provide a solution if any solution exists.
• If there are more than one solutions for a given problem,
then BFS will provide the minimal solution which
requires the least number of steps.
Disadvantages of Breadth-first Search
• It requires lots of memory since each level of the tree must
be saved into memory to expand the next level.
• BFS needs lots of time if the solution is far away from the
root node.
 Cont..
Example:
In the below tree structure, we have shown
the traversing of the tree using BFS
algorithm from the root node S to goal node
K. BFS search algorithm traverse in layers, so
it will follow the path which is shown by the
dotted arrow, and the traversed path will be:
1.S---> A--->B---->C--->D---->G--->H--->E----
>F---->I---->K
Cont..
 Cont..

Time Complexity: Time Complexity of BFS

algorithm can be obtained by the number of nodes
traversed in BFS until the shallowest Node. Where
the d= depth of shallowest solution and b is a node at
every state.
T (b) = 1+b2+b3+.......+ bd= O (bd)
Space Complexity: Space complexity of BFS
algorithm is given by the Memory size of frontier
which is O(bd).
Completeness: BFS is complete, which means if the
shallowest goal node is at some finite depth, then
BFS will find a solution.
Optimality: BFS is optimal if path cost is a non-
decreasing function of the depth of the node.
 Cont..

Depth-first Search
Depth-first search is a recursive algorithm for
traversing a tree or graph data structure.
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.
DFS uses a stack data structure for its
implementation.
The process of the DFS algorithm is similar to the
BFS algorithm.
 Note: Backtracking is an algorithm technique for finding all
possible solutions using recursion.
 Cont..

Advantage of Depth-first Search

• 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.
• It takes less time to reach to the goal node than
BFS algorithm (if it traverses in the right path).
Disadvantage of Depth-first Search
• There is the possibility that many states keep
re-occurring, and there is no guarantee of
finding the solution.
• DFS algorithm goes for deep down searching
and sometime it may go to the infinite loop.
 Cont..

In the below search tree, we have shown the flow of

depth-first search, and it will follow the order as:
Root node--->Left node ----> right node.
It will start searching from root node S, and traverse A,
then B, then D and E, after traversing E, it will backtrack
the tree as E has no other successor and still goal node is
not found. After backtracking it will traverse node C and
then G, and here it will terminate as it found goal node.
Cont..
 Cont..
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).
Optimal: DFS search algorithm is non-optimal, as it may
generate a large number of steps or high cost to reach
to the goal node.
 Cont..
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).
Optimal: DFS search algorithm is non-optimal, as it may
generate a large number of steps or high cost to reach
to the goal node.
 Cont..
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:
Standard failure value: It indicates that problem does not
have any solution.
Cutoff failure value: It defines no solution for the problem
within a given depth limit.
 Cont..
Advantages of Depth-Limited Search
Algorithm
Depth-limited search is Memory efficient.
Disadvantages Depth-Limited Search
Algorithm
• Depth-limited search also has a disadvantage
of incompleteness.
• It may not be optimal if the problem has more
than one solution.
 Cont..
example
 Cont..
 Completeness: DLS search algorithm is
complete if the solution is above the depth-
limit.
Time Complexity: Time complexity of DLS
algorithm is O(bℓ).
Space Complexity: Space complexity of DLS
algorithm is O(b×ℓ).
Optimal: Depth-limited search can be viewed
as a special case of DFS, and it is also not
optimal even if ℓ>d.
 Cont..
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.
 Cont..
Advantages of Uniform-cost Search Algorithm
• Uniform cost search is optimal because at
every state the path with the least cost is
chosen.
Disadvantages of Uniform-cost Search
Algorithm
• 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.
 Cont..
Example
 Cont..
 Completeness: Uniform-cost search is
complete, such as if there is a solution, UCS will
find it.
Time Complexity: Let C* is Cost of the
optimal solution, and ε is each step to get
closer to the goal node. Then the number of steps
is = C*/ε+1. Here we have taken +1, as we start
from state 0 and end to C*/ε.
Hence, the worst-case time complexity of
Uniform-cost search isO(b1 + [C*/ε])/.
Space Complexity: The same logic is for space
complexity so, the worst-case space complexity of
Uniform-cost search is O(b1 + [C*/ε]).
Optimal: Uniform-cost search is always optimal
as it only selects a path with the lowest path cost.
 Cont..
Iterative deepeningdepth-first Search:
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.
 Cont..
Advantages of Iterative deepeningdepth-first Search
• Itcombines the benefits of BFS and DFS search algorithm
in terms of fast search and memory efficiency.
Disadvantages of Iterative deepeningdepth-first
Search
• The main drawback of IDDFS is that it repeats all the
work of the previous phase.
 Cont..
Example: Following tree structure is
showing the iterative deepening depth-first
search. IDDFS algorithm performs various
iterations until it does not find the goal node.
The iteration performed by the algorithm is
given as:
 Cont..
1'st Iteration-----> A
2'nd Iteration----> A, B, C
3'rd Iteration------>A, B, D, E, C, F, G
4'th Iteration------>A, B, D, H, I, E, C, F, K, G
In the fourth iteration, the algorithm will find the
goal node.
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).
Optimal: IDDFS algorithm is optimal if path cost is
a non- decreasing function of the depth of the node.
 Cont..
Bidirectional Search Algorithm:
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.
 Cont..
Advantages of Bidirectional Search Algorithm
• Bidirectional search is fast.
• Bidirectional search requires less memory
Disadvantages of Bidirectional Search Algorithm
• Implementation of the bidirectional search tree is difficult.
• In bidirectional search, one should know the goal state in
advance.
 Cont..
• Example: In the below search tree, bidirectional search
algorithm is applied. This algorithm divides one
graph/tree into two sub-graphs. It starts traversing from
node 1 in the forward direction and starts from goal node
16 in the backward direction. The algorithm terminates at
node 9 where two searches meet.
Cont..
 Cont..

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.
 Informed Search Algorithms
informed search algorithm contains an array
of knowledge such as how far we are from the
goal, path cost, how to reach to goal node,
etc. This knowledge help agents to explore
less to the search space and find more
efficiently the goal node.
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.
 Cont…
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.
 There are the various types of informed search algorithms:

 Best-first Search
 A* search
 1. Best first Search (Greedy Search)
Greedy best-first search algorithm always selects
the path which appears best at that moment. It is
the combination of DFS and BFS 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. Where, h(n)= estimated cost from node n to the
goal.
The greedy best first algorithm is implemented
by the priority queue.
 1. Best first Search Cont …
Best first search algorithm:
 Step 1: Place the starting node into the OPEN list.
 Step 2: If the OPEN list is empty, Stop and return failure.
 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.
 Step 4: Expand the node n, and generate the successors
of node n.
 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.
 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.
 Step 7: Return to Step 2.
 1. Best first Search Cont …
Advantages:
• Best first search can switch between BFS and
DFS by gaining the advantages of both the
algorithms.
• This algorithm is more efficient than BFS and
DFS algorithms.
Disadvantages:
• It can behave as an unguided depth-first
search in the worst case scenario.
• It can get stuck in a loop as DFS.
• This algorithm is not optimal.
1. Best first Search Cont …
1. Best first Search Cont …
 1. Best first Search Cont …
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]
Iteration 3: 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
 1. Best first Search Cont …
Time Complexity: The worst case time
complexity of Greedy best first search is O(b m).
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.
 1. A* Search
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.
1. A* Search Cont…
 1. A* Search Cont…
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.
 1. A* Search Cont…
Advantages:

 A* search algorithm is the best algorithm than other

search algorithms.
 A* search algorithm is optimal and complete.
 This algorithm can solve very complex problems.

Disadvantages:

 It does not always produce the shortest path as it mostly

based on heuristics and approximation.
 A* search algorithm has some complexity issues.
 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.
1. A* Search Cont…
1. A* Search Cont…
 1. A* Search Cont…
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.
 1. A* Search Cont…
 Points to remember:
• A* algorithm returns the path which occurred first, and it does not
search for all remaining paths.
• The efficiency of A* algorithm depends on the quality of heuristic.
• A* algorithm expands all nodes which satisfy the condition f(n)
 Complete: A* algorithm is complete as long as:
• Branching factor is finite.
• Cost at every action is fixed.
 Optimal: A* search algorithm is optimal if it follows below two
conditions:
• 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.
• 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.
 1. A* Search Cont…
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)
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