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Session - 3 CO1-Introduction To Heuristic Search

The document discusses the limitations of uninformed search methods, highlighting the combinatorial explosion in search space size, particularly in the context of puzzles like the 8-puzzle. It introduces heuristic search as a more efficient approach that uses heuristic functions to estimate costs and improve search efficiency. The document also outlines various heuristic search techniques, including A* search, and emphasizes the importance of heuristic quality in optimizing search performance.

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9 views12 pages

Session - 3 CO1-Introduction To Heuristic Search

The document discusses the limitations of uninformed search methods, highlighting the combinatorial explosion in search space size, particularly in the context of puzzles like the 8-puzzle. It introduces heuristic search as a more efficient approach that uses heuristic functions to estimate costs and improve search efficiency. The document also outlines various heuristic search techniques, including A* search, and emphasizes the importance of heuristic quality in optimizing search performance.

Uploaded by

sanjanarrao.2005
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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ARTIFICIAL

INTELLIGENCE
&
MACHINE LEARNING
SESSION NO: 3
TOPIC: INFORMED SEARCH-INTRODUCTION TO HEURISTIC SEARCH
LIMITATIONS OF UNINFORMED SEARCH
• Search Space Size makes search tedious
• Combinatorial Explosion

• For example, 8-puzzle


• Avg. solution cost is about 22 steps
• branching factor ~ 3
• Exhaustive search to depth 22:
• 3.1 x 1010 states
• E.g., d=12, IDS expands 3.6 million states on average

[24 puzzle has 1024 states (much worse)]


RECALL TREE SEARCH…
RECALL TREE SEARCH…

This “strategy” is what


differentiates different search
algorithms
HEURISTIC SEARCH

• All of the search methods in the preceding section are uninformed in that they
did not take into account the cost incurred to reach the goal.
• They do not use any information about where they are trying to get to unless
they happen to stumble on a goal.
• A heuristic is a method that improves the efficiency of the search process.
• To find a solution in proper time rather than a complete solution in unlimited
time we use heuristics.
• These heuristic search methods use heuristic functions to evaluate the next
state towards the goal state
• A heuristic function h(n), takes a node n and returns a non-negative real
number that is an estimate of the cost of the least-cost path from node n to a
goal node.
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HEURISTIC SEARCH

 Idea: use an evaluation function f(n) for each node


and a heuristic function h(n) for each node
 g(n) = known path cost so far to node n.
 h(n) = estimate of (optimal) cost to goal from node n.
 f(n) = g(n)+h(n) = estimate of total cost to goal through node n.
 f(n) provides an estimate for the total cost:
Expand the node n with smallest f(n).

 Implementation:
Order the nodes in frontier by increasing estimated cost.
 Evaluation function is an estimate of node quality
Þ More accurate name for “best first” search would be “seemingly best-first search”

Þ Search efficiency depends on heuristic quality!


Þ The better your heuristic, the faster your search!
HEURISTIC FUNCTION

Heuristic:
 Definition: a commonsense rule (or set of rules) intended to increase the probability of solving some problem
 Same linguistic root as “Eureka” = “I have found it”
 “using rules of thumb to find answers”

Heuristic function h(n)


 Estimate of (optimal) remaining cost from n to goal
 Defined using only the state of node n
 h(n) = 0 if n is a goal node
 Example: straight line distance from n to Bucharest
 Note that this is not the true state-space distance
 It is an estimate – actual state-space distance can be higher
 Provides problem-specific knowledge to the search algorithm
HEURISTIC FUNCTIONS FOR 8-PUZZLE
• 8-puzzle
• Avg. solution cost is about 22 steps
• branching factor ~ 3
• Exhaustive search to depth 22:
• 3.1 x 1010 states.
• A good heuristic function can reduce the search process.

• Two commonly used heuristics


• h1 = the number of misplaced tiles
• h1(s)=8
• h2 = the sum of the distances of the tiles from their goal positions (Manhattan
distance).
• h2(s)=3+1+2+2+2+3+3+2=18
RELATIONSHIP OF SEARCH
ALGORITHMS
• g(n) = known cost so far to reach n
• h(n) = estimated (optimal) cost from n to goal
• f(n) = g(n) + h(n)

= estimated (optimal) total cost of path through n to goal


• Uniform Cost search sorts frontier by g(n)
• Greedy Best First search sorts frontier by h(n)
• A* search sorts frontier by f(n)
• Optimal for admissible/consistent heuristics
• Generally the preferred heuristic search
• Memory-efficient versions of A* are available
• RBFS, SMA*
HEURISTIC SEARCH TECHNIQUES IN AI
SUMMARY

 Uninformed search methods have uses, also severe limitations


 Heuristics are a structured way to add “smarts” to your search
 Informed (or heuristic) search uses problem-specific heuristics to improve
efficiency
 Best-first, A* (and if needed for memory limits, RBFS, SMA*)
 Techniques for generating heuristics

 Can provide significant speed-ups in practice


 E.g., on 8-puzzle, speed-up is dramatic
 Still have worst-case exponential time complexity
 In AI, “NP-Complete” means “Formally interesting”
• Reference Books:

• 1. Russel and Norvig, ‘Artificial Intelligence’, third edition, Pearson Education, PHI, (2015)

• 2. Elaine Rich & Kevin Knight, ‘Artificial Intelligence’, 3nd Edition, Tata Mc Graw Hill Edition,
Reprint( 2008)

• Sites and Web links:

1. https://www.virtusa.com/digital-themes/heuristic-search-techniques

2. https://towardsdatascience.com/a-star-a-search-algorithm-eb495fb156bb

3. https://www.tutorialandexample.com/local-search-algorithms-and-optimization-problem/

4. http://cgi.di.uoa.gr/~ys02/siteAI2008/local-search-2spp.pdf

5. http://aima.eecs.berkeley.edu/slides-pdf/chapter04b.pdf

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