COURSE:

Artificial Intelligence
and Deep learning (AIDL)

UNIT-2-Part-1

SEARCHING METHODS

Dr. Manu Gupta

Types of search algorithms
Properties of Search Algorithms:

• Completeness

• Optimality

• Time Complexity

• Space Complexity
 Uninformed Search Algorithms
• The uninformed search does not contain any
domain knowledge such as closeness, the
location of the goal.

• It operates in a brute-force way .

• It is also called blind search.

 Breadth-first Search
• This algorithm searches breadthwise in a tree or graph, so it is
called breadth-first search.

In the above figure, it is seen that the

nodes are expanded level by level starting
from the root node A till the last node I in
the tree. Therefore, the BFS sequence
followed is: A->B->C->D->E->F->G->I.
 Uniform-cost Search Algorithm
• The primary goal of the uniform-cost search is to find a path
to the goal node which has the lowest cumulative cost.
 Depth-first Search
• Depth-first search starts from the root node and follows each
path to its greatest depth node before moving to the next
path.
Bidirectional Search Algorithm
 Informed Search Algorithms

• So far we have talked about the uninformed search algorithms

which looked through search space for all possible solutions of
the problem without having any additional knowledge about
search space. But 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.
• 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.
Admissibility of the heuristic function is given as:
h(n) <= h*(n)
Here h(n) is heuristic cost, and h*(n) is the estimated
cost. Hence heuristic cost should be less than or
equal to the estimated cost.
Pure Heuristic Search:
Pure heuristic search is the simplest form of heuristic search algorithms. It expands nodes based on their
heuristic value h(n). It maintains two lists, OPEN and CLOSED list. In the CLOSED list, it places those
nodes which have already expanded and in the OPEN list, it places nodes which have yet not been
expanded.
On each iteration, each node n with the lowest heuristic value is expanded and generates all its successors
and n is placed to the closed list. The algorithm continues unit a goal state is found.
In the informed search we will discuss two main algorithms which are given below:
1.Best First Search Algorithm(Greedy search)
2.A* Search Algorithm
1.) Best-first Search Algorithm (Greedy Search):
Greedy best-first search algorithm always selects the path which
appears best at that moment. It is the combination of depth-first
search and breadth-first search 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.
f(n)= h(n).
Were, h(n)= estimated cost from node n to the goal.
The greedy best first algorithm is implemented by the priority
queue.
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.
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.
Example:
Consider the below search problem, and we will traverse it using
greedy best-first search. At each iteration, each node is expanded
using evaluation function f(n)=h(n) , which is given in the below table.
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

Time Complexity: The worst case time complexity
of Greedy best first search is O(bm).
Space Complexity: The worst case space
complexity of Greedy best first search is O(bm).
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.
2.) A* Search Algorithm:
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.
At each point in the search space, only those node is expanded which have
the lowest value of f(n), and the algorithm terminates when the goal node is
found.
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.
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.
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.

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)<="" li="">

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.

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)

 Adversarial Search
• Adversarial search is a search, where we examine the problem
which arises when we try to plan ahead of the world and other
agents are planning against us.

• Searches in which two or more players with conflicting goals are

trying to explore the same search space for the solution, are
called adversarial searches, often known as Games.

• Adversarial Search Algorithms: Mini-max Algorithm and Alpha-

Beta Pruning.
Types of Games in AI
n-gl.com