Solving Problems by

Searching
Today’s
Agenda
• Searching for Solutions
• Uninformed Search Strategies
• Breadth First Search
• Depth First Search
• Uniform Cost Search (UCS)
• Depth Limited Search
• Iterative Deepening Search
Searching For
Solutions
• Having formulated some problems…how do we
solve them?

• Search through a state space

• Use a search tree that is generated with an initial

state and successor functions that define the state
space
Searching For
Solutions
• A state is (a representation of) a physical configuration

• A node is a data structure constituting part of a search tree

• Includes parent, children, depth, path cost

• States do not have children, depth, or path cost

• The EXPAND function creates new nodes, filling in the

various fields and using the SUCCESSOR function of the
problem to create the corresponding states
 Uninformed Search
• Uninformed strategies use only the information available in the
Strategies
problem definition
• Also known as blind searching
• Search strategies differ in how they choose which node to
check/expand next
• Do not have additional info about states beyond problem
definition
• Total search space can be looked for solution
• Types
1. Breadth-first search
2. Depth-first search
3. Uniform-cost search
4. Depth-limited search
5. Iterative deepening search
6. Bidirectional search
Comparing Uninformed Search
Strategies
• Completeness
• Will a solution always be found if one exists?
• Time
• How long does it take to find the solution?
• Often represented as the number of nodes searched
• Space
• How much memory is needed to perform the search?
• Often represented as the maximum number of nodes stored at
once
• Optimal
• Will the optimal (least cost) solution be found?
Comparing Uninformed Search
Strategies
• Time and space complexity are measured in
• b – maximum branching factor of the search tree
• m – maximum depth of the state space (Max path
length)
• Branching factor (b) (Successors of any node), depth
of shallowest/lowest goal node (d), maximum length
of any path in the state space (m)
• Search cost (memory cost) vs. total cost (path +
memory use)
• Tradeoffs
Breadth-First
Search
• Recall from Data Structures the basic algorithm for
a breadth-first search on a graph or tree

• Expand the shallowest unexpanded node

• Place all new successors at the end of a FIFO

queue
Breadth-First
Search

Queue-FIFO List

Front
Breadth-First
Search

Queue-FIFO List
A

Front
Breadth-First
Search

Queue-FIFO List
A B

Front
 Breadth-First
Search Root

Depth 0 Level 0

Max. Depth of Tree Depth 1 Level 1

Leaf Nodes
Depth 2 Level 2
Queue-FIFO List
A B C D E F G

Front
Properties of Breadth-First
Search
• Complete
• Yes if b (max branching factor) is finite
• But it wouldn’t be if the branching factor for any node was infinite
• Time
• 1 + b + b2 + … + bd + b(bm-1) = O(bm+1)
• O(bm+1) : Must examine every node in the tree
• exponential in m
Properties of Breadth-First
Search
• Space
• O(bm+1)
• Keeps every node in memory
• This is the big problem; an agent that generates nodes at 10 MB/sec
will produce 864000 MBs in 24 hours
• Optimal
• Yes (if cost is 1 per step); not optimal in general
Using Breadth-First
Search
• When is BFS appropriate?
• space is not a problem
• it’s necessary to find the solution with the fewest arcs
• although all solutions may not be shallow, at least some
are
• When is BFS inappropriate?
• space is limited
• all solutions tend to be located deep in the tree
• the branching factor is very large
Lessons From Breadth First
Search
• The memory requirements are a bigger problem for
breadth-first search than is execution time

• Exponential-complexity search problems cannot be

solved by uniformed methods for any but the
smallest instances
Depth-First
Search
• Recall from Data Structures the basic algorithm for
a depth-first search on a graph or tree

• Expand the deepest unexpanded node

• Unexplored successors are placed on a stack until

fully explored
Depth-First
Search

Stack

Output
 Depth-First
Search
Root-> Left Child -> Right child

Stack

Output A
Depth-First
Search

B
Active
A
Paused
Stack

Output A B
Depth-First
Search

D
D Active
B
B Paused
A
A

Paused
Stack

Output A B D
Depth-First
Search
H Active
D Paused
B
A
Paused

Paused
Stack
Output A B D H
Depth-First
Search

D Active
B Paused
A

Paused
Stack

Output A B D H
Depth-First
Search

I Active
D Paused
B
Paused
A

Paused
Stack

Output A B D H I
Depth-First
Search

D Active
B Paused
A

Paused
Stack

Output A B D H I
Depth-First
Search

B Active
A
Paused
Stack

Output A B D H I
Depth-First
Search

B Active
A
Paused
Stack

Output A B D H I
Depth-First
Search

E Active
B Paused
A

Paused
Stack

Output A B D H I E
Depth-First
Search
J Active
E Paused
B
A
Paused
Paused
Stack

Output A B D H I E J
Depth-First
Search

E Active
B Paused
A

Paused
Stack

Output A B D H I E J
Depth-First
Search
• Complete?

• Time Complexity?
• if the maximum path length is m and
the maximum branching factor is b
• O(bm+1)
Depth First
Search
• Space
• O(bm)

• Optimal
• No
Using Depth-First
Search
• When is DFS appropriate?
• space is restricted
• solutions tend to occur at the same depth in the tree
• When is DFS inappropriate?
• some paths have infinite length
• the graph contains cycles
• some solutions are very deep, while others are very
shallow
Uniform Cost Search
• Same idea as the algorithm for breadth-first
search…but…
• Expand the least-cost (g(n)) unexpanded node
• FIFO queue is ordered by cost
• What if all step costs are equal?
• Equivalent to regular breadth-first search if all step
costs are
equal
Uniform Cost Search
A
5 9
4
2 3
B C D

2 3 4 3
7

E G1 F G2
 A
5 9
4
Uniform Cost B
2 C 3
D

Search A
2 3
7 4 3

G 1 G
5 9 E F
4 2

B 5 C 4
3 D
7 9
2 3
2
G1
E 11 D
G1 7
7 C 8 3
7 4
GOA
L F G2
11 10
Visited List

A C B

E D
Uniform Cost Search
• Complete
• Yes
• Time
• Let C* be the cost of the optimal solution
• assume that every action costs at least ε
•O(b1+(C*/ ε))
• Space
•O(b1+(C*/ ε))
• Optimal
• Yes
• Time and space complexity when all costs are
equal? It is similar to bfs, except that the latter
stops as soon as it generates a goal, whereas
uniform-cost search examines all the nodes at the
goal’s depth to see if one has a lower cost
O(b1+(C*/ ε)) = bd+1
Depth Limited Search (DLS)
•Same as DFS with level limitation or depth
limit.
• Search is limited up to some predetermined
level l .
• Nodes at depth l have no successors.
• Alleviates the problem of unbounded trees

DLS = DFS + Limit for the level

Depth Limited Search 1. Select level
2. Apply DFS up-to the selected
(DLS) level

A Level 0

B C D
Level 1

E F H I
Level 2 l
=2
Stack G1 J K L G2
Level 3

Output
Depth Limited Search
(DLS)
•Limitation-> If goal node is located after the
height limit, it will fail.
•Benefit-> Will not go into infinite loops.
•Same as depth-first search if l = ∞
Depth-Limited Search
• Complete
• DLS search algorithm is complete if the solution is above
the depth-limit.
• Time
• O(bl)
• Space
• O(bl)
• Optimal
• Not
even
if l >
d
 Depth Limited Search
•How to choose l ?
• based on knowledge
of the problem
• example, on the map
of Romania there are
20 cities. Therefore,
we know that if there
is a solution, it must
be of length 19 at the
longest, so = 19 is a
possible choice
Iterative Deepening Search
(IDS)
• Iterative deepening depth-first search
• Uses depth-first search
• Finds the best depth limit
• Gradually increases the depth limit; 0, 1, 2, … until a goal is
found
Iterative Deepening Search

1'st Iteration-----> A
2'nd Iteration----> A, B, C
3'rd Iteration------>A, B, D, E, C, F, G
Iterative Deepening
Search
Iterative Deepening
Search
Iterative Deepening
Search
Iterative Deepening
Search
Iterative Deepening
Search
• Complete
• Yes
• Time
• O(bd)
• Space
• O(bd)
• Optimal
• Yes if
step
cost
=1
Lessons From Iterative
Deepening Search
• Faster than BFS even though IDS generates
repeated states
• BFS generates nodes up to level d+1
• IDS only generates nodes up to level d

• In general, iterative deepening search is the

preferred uninformed search method when there is
a large search space and the depth of the solution
is not known
Bidirectional Search
• Run two simultaneous searches
• One forward from initial state
• Forward Search
• Other backward from the goal
• Backward Search

• Divides one single search graph into two small sub-

graphs
• Search Stopping Criteria?
• When these two graphs intersect each other
Bidirectional Search
Bidirectional Search
Bidirectional Search
• Complete
• Yes
• Time Complexity
• O(bd/2)
• Space Complexity
• O(bd/2)
• Optimal
• Yes if both directions use BFS and if all step costs are
identical
Bidirectional Search
• Advantages
• Bidirectional Search is fast
• Bidirectional search requires less memory
• Disadvantages
• Implementation of Bidirectional search is difficult
• Goal state should be known in advance
Comparison

b is the branching factor; d is the depth of the shallowest

solution; m is the maximum depth of the search tree; l is the
depth limit. Superscript caveats are as follows: a complete if b is
finite; b complete if step costs ≥ for positive ; c optimal if step
costs are all identical; d if both directions use breadth-first
search.