ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

CSE 3201

Uninformed Search
 Uninformed Search
■ Uninform search is also called Blind search. It is the search which has no
information about its domain. The only thing that a blind search can do is to
differentiate between a non goal state and a goal state. These methods do not need
domain knowledge but they are less efficient in result.
■ Uninform strategies don’t use any information about how close a node might be to a
goal. They differ in the order that the nodes are expanded. The most important
uninformed techniques are breadth first search, depth first search, IDDFS, uniform
cost search.

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 Uninformed Search Strategies
■ Use only information available in the problem formulation
-Breadth-first
-Depth-first
-Depth-limited
-Iterative deepening
-Uniform Cost
-Bi-Directional

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 Breadth-First Search
■ Expand shallowest unexpanded node
■ All the nodes reachable from the current node are explored first
– achieved by the TREE-SEARCH method by appending newly generated nodes at the end
of the search queue.
■ Implementation:
– A FIFO queue, i.e., new successors go at end
■ Order of expanding nodes:

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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Breadth-First Snapshot

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BFS Tree for Route

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 Pros & Cons of BFS

Pros: Cons:
■ If there is a solution, BFS is ■ Each level of nodes are stored
guaranteed to find it. before creating the next one,
hence it uses more memory.
■ If there are multiple solutions,
then a minimal solution will be ■ If the solution is far away from
found. the root, BFS will consume more
time.
■ BFS will not get trapped during
exploring.

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Breadth-First Search

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Breadth-First Search

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Breadth-First Search

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Breadth-First Search

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Breadth-First Search

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Breadth-First Search

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Breadth-First Search

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Breadth-First Search

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Breadth-First Search

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 Properties of BFS
■ Completeness:
Yes, the solution is reached if it exists.
■ Optimality:
Yes.

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 Properties of BFS
• Time Complexity
– assume (worst case) that there is 1 d=0
goal leaf at G
– so BFS will expand all nodes d=1

= 1 + b + b2+ ......... + bd d=2

= O (bd) G

d=0
• Space Complexity
– how many nodes can be in the queue
d=1
(worst-case)?
– at depth d-1 there are bd unexpanded d=2
nodes in the Q = O (bd) G
– Nodes are kept in memory.

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 BFS Example

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 Depth-first Search
■ Expand deepest unexpanded node
■ DFS progresses by expanding the first child node of the search tree that appears and thus
going deeper and deeper until a goal node is found, or until it hits a node that has no
children. Then the search backtracks, returning to the most recent node it hasn’t finished
exploring.
■ Implementation:
– A LIFO data structure, i.e., a stack
■ Guarantees to find a solution if the problem space is finite.
– achieved by the TREE-SEARCH method by appending newly generated nodes at the
beginning of stack.

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Depth-first Search

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Depth-first Search

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Depth-first Search

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Depth-first Search

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Depth-first Search

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Depth-first Search

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Depth-first Search

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Depth-first Search

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 Pros and Cons of DFS

Pros Cons
■ DFS requires less memory since ■ The disadvantage of Depth-First
only the nodes on the current Search is that there is a
path are stored. possibility that it may go down to
infinite loop when there is a
■ If DFS finds solution without
cycle.
exploring much in a path then
the time and space it takes will ■ Depth-First Search is incomplete
be very less. when the search space is not
finite, thus not guaranteed to
find the solution.

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 Properties of DFS
■ Complete?
No (Yes on finite trees, fails in infinite state space)
■ Optimality:
Consider the scenario that there is more than one goal node, and our search decided to
first expand the left sub tree of the root where there is a solution at a very deep level of
this left sub tree, in the same time the right sub tree of the root has a solution near the
root, here comes the non-optimality of DFS that it is not guaranteed that the first goal to
find is the optimal one, so we conclude that DFS is non-optimal.

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 Properties of DFS
■ Time Complexity
– assume (worst case) that there is 1 goal leaf
at G so, DFS will expand all nodes d=0

=1 + b + b2+ ......... + bd
= O (bd) d=1
– bad if d is much larger than b d=2
■ Space Complexity G
– how many nodes in the stack?
level 1: b-1 nodes d=
0
level 2 : b-1 nodes d=
…. 1
d=
level d-1: b-1 nodes 2
level d: b nodes
d=
■ So, total node in the memory = (b-1)(d-1)+b = bd+1- 3
b+d+b = bd+1-d = (b-1)d+1 === aprroximately
O(bd) space. 42
 BFS vs DFS

Breadth First Search (BFS) Depth First Search (DFS)

■ BFS visit nodes level by level in Graph. ■ DFS visit nodes of graph depth wise. It visits
nodes until reach a leaf or a node which
■ A node is fully explored before any other doesn’t have non-visited nodes.
can begin.
■ Exploration of a node is suspended as soon
■ Uses Queue data structure to store Un- as another unexplored is found.
explored nodes. ■ Uses Stack data structure to store Un-
■ BFS require more memory. explored nodes.

■ No backtracking is required. ■ DFS require less memory.

■ Backtracking is required.
■ If search target is concentrated more
near the root and not very deep, BFS ■ If search target distribution is frequent in the
should perform better and vice-versa. search-space, DFS should perform better and
vice-versa.
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 Depth-Limited Search
■ It is depth-first search with an imposed limit on the depth of exploration, to guarantee that
the algorithm ends.
■ Simply put an upper limit on the depth of paths allowed.
- Expand node at the deepest level, but limit depth to L
■ Motivation:
- Prevents search diving into deep solutions
- Might already have a solution of known depth (cost), but are looking
for a shallower (cheaper) one

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 Depth-Limited Search
■ Depth limit of 2 would mean that children of E are ignored.

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 Properties of Depth-Limited Search
• Complete?
Yes if there is a goal state at a depth less than L
• Optimal?
No
• Time Complexity:
O (bL), where L is the cutoff.
• Space Complexity:
O(bL), where L is the cutoff.

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 Iterative Deepening Search or IDDFS
• BFS
– good for optimality
– bad on memory, O(bd)
• DFS
– solutions not guaranteed optimal: dives and misses good nodes
– good for memory O(bd)
• “Iterative Deepening” refers to a method that tries to combine the best of the
above.

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 Iterative Deepening Search
■ To avoid the infinite depth problem of DFS, we can
decide to only search until depth L, i.e. we don’t expand beyond depth L.
That is Depth-Limited Search.
• What if solution is deeper than L? Ans: Increase L iteratively.

 Iterative Deepening Search

• As we’ll see: this inherits the memory advantage of Depth-First
search, and is better in terms of time complexity than Breadth first search.
■ We get the benefits of BFS and DFS through this process.

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Iterative Deepening Search L=0

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Iterative Deepening Search L=1

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Iterative Deepening Search L=2

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Iterative Deepening Search L=3

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 Iterative Deepening Search
■ Complete?
Yes
■ Optimal?
Yes
■ Time
O(bd), where d is the depth of the solution.
■ Space
O(bd), where d is the depth of the solution.

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 Search with varying step costs

■ BFS finds the path with the fewest steps, but does not always find the cheapest
path.

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Uniform-Cost Search(UCS)

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 Uniform-Cost Search
■ At any given point in the execution, the algorithm never expands a node which has a
cost greater than the cost of the shortest path in the tree.
■ First goal found is least-cost solution

■ The nodes are stored in a priority queue.

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UCS Example

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Example for illustrating uninformed search
strategies
S
3 1 8

A B C
3 15
7 20 5
D E G

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 Breadth-First Search
Expanded node Nodes list
S { S0 }
3 1 8 S0 { A3 B1 C8 }
A3 { B1 C8 D6 E10 G18 }
A B C B1 { C8 D6 E10 G18 G21 }
3 15 C8 { D6 E10 G18 G21 G13 }
7 20 5 D6 { E10 G18 G21 G13 }
D E G E10 { G18 G21 G13 }
G18 { G21 G13 }
Solution path found is S A G , cost 18

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 Depth-First Search
Expanded node Nodes list
S { S0 }
3 1 8 S0 { A3 B1 C8 }
A3 { D6 E10 G18 B1 C8 }
A B C D6 { E10 G18 B1 C8 }
3 15 E10 { G18 B1 C8 }
7 20 5 G18 { B1 C8 }
D E G
Solution path found is S A G, cost 18

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 Uniform-Cost Search
Expanded node Nodes list
{ S0 }
S
S0 { B1 A3 C8 }
3 1 8 B1 { A3 C8 G21 }
A3 { D6 C8 E10 G18 G21 }
A B C D6 { C8 E10 G18 G21 }
3 15
7 20 C8 { E10 G13 G18 G21 }
5 E10 { G13 G18 G21 }
D E G G13 { G18 G21 }
Solution path found is S C G, cost 13

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Exercise

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Uniform-Cost Search

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 When to use What
• Depth-First Search:
– Many solutions exist
– Know (or have a good estimate of) the depth of solution
• Breadth-First Search:
– Some solutions are known to be shallow
• Uniform-Cost Search:
– Actions have varying costs
– Least cost solution is required
– This is the only uninformed search that worries about costs.
• Iterative-Deepening Search:
– Space is limited and the shortest solution path is required
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 Bi-directional Search
• Alternate searching from the start state toward the goal and from the goal state toward the
start.
• Stop when the frontiers intersect.
• Works well only when there are unique start and goal states and when actions are
reversible.
• Can lead to finding a solution more quickly.

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