UNIT 2

PROBLEM SOLVING
SEARCH ALGORITHM IN AI
? Problem-solving agents:

Search techniques are universal problem-

solving methods.

Rational agents or Problem-solving

agents in AI mostly used these search
strategies

Problem-solving agents are the goal-based

agents
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.
? 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.
PROPERTIES OF SEARCH
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
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 is also called blind search.

? It examines each node of the tree until it

achieves the goal node.
INFORMED SEARCH
? 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.
BREADTH FIRST SEARCH
ALGORITHM (UNINFORMED)
? As breadth-first search is the process of
traversing each node of the graph,

? a standard BFS algorithm traverses each

vertex of the graph into two parts: 1) Visited
2) Not Visited.

? So, the purpose of the algorithm is to visit

all the vertex
?
DEPTH FIRST SEARCH ALGORITHM DFS
(UNINFORMED)
1. We take a route
2. keep going until we discover a dead end.
3. When touching the dead end, we again
come back and keep coming back till we
see a path we didn't attempt before.
4. Take that new route and repeat steps 1,2,3

? The Depth-First Search is a recursive

algorithm that uses the concept of
backtracking.
?
GENERATE AND TEST
(INFORMED / HEURISTIC SEARCH TECHNIQUES)
? Algorithm: Generate-And-Test

? 1. Generate a possible solution.

? 2. Test to see if this is the expected solution.

? 3. If the solution has been found quit else

go to step 1
? Generate-and-test, like depth-first search

? Solutions can also be generated randomly

but solution is not guaranteed.

? Example – Traveling Salesman Problem

(TSP)
EXAMPLE – TRAVELING SALESMAN
PROBLEM (TSP)

? A salesman has a list of cities

? Traveler needs to visit n cities exactly once.
Know the distance between each pair of
cities.
? Want to know the shortest route that visits
all the cities once.
SEARCH FLOW WITH GENERATE AND
TEST
?
HILL CLIMBING
(INFORMED / HEURISTIC SEARCH TECHNIQUES)

? Hill climbing search algorithm is simply a

loop that continuously moves in the
direction of increasing value.

? It stops when it reaches a “peak” where no

neighbor has higher value.
? Step 1: Evaluate the starting state. If it is a
goal state then stop and return success.

? Step 2: Else, continue with the starting state

as considering it as a current state.

? Step 3: Continue step-4 until a solution is

found i.e. until there are no new states left
to be applied in the current state.
? Step 4:
? I. Select a state that has not been yet
applied as the current state

? II. current state is a goal state, then stop

and return success.

? III. If it is better than the current state, then

make it current state and proceed further.

? IV. If it is not better than the current state,

then continue in the loop until a solution is
found.
? Step 5: Exit.
BEST FIRST SEARCH
(INFORMED / HEURISTIC SEARCH TECHNIQUES)

? The idea of Best First Search is to use an

evaluation function to decide which
adjacent is most promising and then
explore.

? We use a priority queue to store the costs of

nodes that have the lowest evaluation
function value.
We start from source “S” and search for goal “I” using
given costs
? pq initially contains S
⚫ We remove S from pq and process unvisited
neighbors of S to pq.
⚫ pq now contains {A, C, B} (C is put before B
because C has lesser cost)

? We remove A from pq and process unvisited

neighbors of A to pq.
⚫ pq now contains {C, B, E, D}
? We remove C from pq and process unvisited
neighbors of C to pq.
⚫ pq now contains {B, H, E, D}

? We remove B from pq and process unvisited

neighbors of B to pq.
⚫ pq now contains {H, E, D, F, G}
? We remove H from pq.
? Since our goal “I” is a neighbor of H, we
return.
A* SEARCH ALGORITHM

 It is a Informed Search Algorithm.

 It used to find the shortest path between an

initial and a final point.

 A* uses of weighted graphs.

 find the optimal path between two nodes in

a graph.
A* SEARCH ALGORITHM

? In A* search algorithm, we use search

heuristic as well as the cost to reach the
node.
A* SEARCH ALGORITHM
A* SEARCH ALGORITHM

? Solution
LOCAL SEARCH ALGORITHM
 This is a type of optimization algorithm used
to find the best solution.

 Starting with an initial solution and then

making minor adjustments to it.

 A small modification to the current solution

creates a new solution.

 Compares current and new solution. If new

solution is superior, replace it with current
solution and repeat the process.
STEPS OF A LOCAL SEARCH
ALGORITHM:
? Initialization: starts with an initial solution
to the problem (random solution)
? Evaluation: quality of the initial solution is
evaluated
? Neighbourhood search:generates
neighboring solutions by making small
modifications to the current solution
? Selection: Compares current and new
solution and select best solution from them
? Termination: terminate when best solution
found
LOCAL SEARCH ALGORITHM

Example : Travelling salesman problem(TSP)

SEARCHING WITH NON-DETERMINISTIC
ACTIONS

 So far: fully-observable, deterministic worlds.

Agent knows exact state. All actions always
produce one outcome.

 Real world = partially observable, non-

deterministic
Percepts become useful: can tell agent which
action occurred – Goal: not a simple action
sequence, but contingency plan
EXAMPLE: VACUUM WORLD
NON-DETERMINISTIC SEARCH TREES

Start state = 1

One solution:
1. Suck,
2. 2. if(state=5) then [right,suck] ]
NON-DETERMINISM: ACTIONS THAT
FAIL
? Action failure is often a non-deterministic
outcome
– Creates a cycle in the search tree

? If no successful solution (plan) without a cycle:

– May return a solution that contains a cycle
– Represents retrying the action

? Infinite loop in plan execution?

– Depends on environment • Action guaranteed to
succeed eventually?
– In practice: can limit loops • Plan no longer
complete (could fail)