Solving problems by searching

Chapter 3
 Outline
 Problem-solving agents
 Problem types
 Problem formulation
 Example problems
 Basic search algorithms
Problem-solving agents
 Example: Romania
 On holiday in Romania; currently in Arad.
 Flight leaves tomorrow from Bucharest
 Formulate goal:
 be in Bucharest
 Formulate problem:
 states: various cities
 actions: drive between cities
 Find solution:
 sequence of cities, e.g., Arad, Sibiu, Fagaras, Bucharest



Example: Romania
 Problem types
 Deterministic, fully observable  single-state problem
 Agent knows exactly which state it will be in; solution is a sequence
 Non-observable  sensorless problem (conformant
problem)
 Agent may have no idea where it is; solution is a sequence
 Nondeterministic and/or partially observable  contingency
problem
 percepts provide new information about current state
 often interleave} search, execution
 Unknown state space  exploration problem



 Example: vacuum world
 Single-state, start in #5.
Solution?

 Example: vacuum world
 Single-state, start in #5.
Solution? [Right, Suck]

 Sensorless, start in
{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8} e.g.,
Right goes to {2,4,6,8}
Solution?



 Example: vacuum world
 Sensorless, start in
{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8} e.g.,
Right goes to {2,4,6,8}
Solution?
[Right,Suck,Left,Suck]

 Contingency
 Nondeterministic: Suck may
dirty a clean carpet
 Partially observable: location, dirt at current location.
 Percept: [L, Clean], i.e., start in #5 or #7
Solution?


 Example: vacuum world
 Sensor less , start in
{1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8} e.g.,
Right goes to {2,4,6,8}
Solution?
[Right , Suck, Left , Suck]

 Contingency
 Nondeterministic: Suck may
dirty a clean carpet
 Partially observable: location, dirt at current location.
 Percept: [L, Clean], i.e., start in #5 or #7
Solution? [Right, if dirt then Suck]

 Single-state problem formulation
A problem is defined by four items:

1. initial state e.g., "at Arad"

2. actions or successor function S(x) = set of action–state pairs
 e.g., S(Arad) = {<Arad  Zerind, Zerind>, … }
3. goal test, can be
 explicit, e.g., x = "at Bucharest"
 implicit, e.g., Checkmate(x)
4. path cost (additive)
 e.g., sum of distances, number of actions executed, etc.
 c(x,a,y) is the step cost, assumed to be ≥ 0
 A solution is a sequence of actions leading from the initial
state to a goal state



 Selecting a state space
 Real world is absurdly complex
 state space must be abstracted for problem solving
 (Abstract) state = set of real states
 (Abstract) action = complex combination of real actions
 e.g., "Arad  Zerind" represents a complex set of possible routes,
detours, rest stops, etc.
 For guaranteed realizability , any real state "in Arad“ must
get to some real state "in Zerind"
 (Abstract) solution =
 set of real paths that are solutions in the real world
 Each abstract action should be "easier" than the original
problem



 Vacuum world state space graph

 states?
 actions?
 goal test?
 path cost?

 Vacuum world state space graph


states? integer dirt and robot location
 actions? Left, Right, Suck
 goal test? no dirt at all locations
 path cost? 1 per action
 Example: The 8-puzzle

 states?
 actions?
 goal test?
 path cost?
 Example: The 8-puzzle

 states? locations of tiles

 actions? move blank left, right, up, down
 goal test? = goal state (given)
 path cost? 1 per move


 Example: robotic assembly

 states?: real-valued coordinates of robot joint

angles parts of the object to be assembled
 actions?: continuous motions of robot joints
 goal test?: complete assembly
 path cost?: time to execute


 Tree search algorithms
 Basic idea:
 offline, simulated exploration of state space by
generating successors of already-explored states
(a.k.a.~expanding states)

Tree search example
Tree search example
Tree search example
Implementation: general tree search
 Implementation: states vs. nodes
 A state is a (representation of) a physical configuration
 A node is a data structure constituting part of a search tree
includes state, parent node, action, path cost g(x), depth

 The Expand function creates new nodes, filling in the

various fields and using the SuccessorFn of the problem
to create the corresponding states.

 Search strategies
 A search strategy is defined by picking the order of node
expansion
 Strategies are evaluated along the following dimensions:
 completeness: does it always find a solution if one exists?
 time complexity: number of nodes generated
 space complexity: maximum number of nodes in memory
 optimality: does it always find a least-cost solution?
 Time and space complexity are measured in terms of
 b: maximum branching factor of the search tree
 d: depth of the least-cost solution
 m: maximum depth of the state space (may be ∞)



 Uninformed search strategies
 Uninformed search strategies use only the
information available in the problem
definition
 Breadth-first search
 Uniform-cost search
 Depth-first search
 Depth-limited search
 Iterative deepening search

 Breadth-first search
 Expand shallowest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe is a FIFO queue, i.e., new successors go
at end



 Breadth-first search
 Expand shallowest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe is a FIFO queue, i.e., new successors go
at end



 Breadth-first search
 Expand shallowest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe is a FIFO queue, i.e., new successors go
at end



 Breadth-first search
 Expand shallowest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe is a FIFO queue, i.e., new successors go
at end



 Properties of breadth-first search
 Complete? Yes (if b is finite)
 Time? 1+b+b2+b3+… +bd + b(bd-1) = O(bd+1)
 Space? O(bd+1) (keeps every node in memory)
 Optimal? Yes (if cost = 1 per step)

 Space is the bigger problem (more than time)




 Uniform-cost search
 Expand least-cost unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = queue ordered by path cost
 Equivalent to breadth-first if step costs all equal
 Complete? Yes, if step cost ≥ ε
 Time? # of nodes with g ≤ cost of optimal solution,
O(bceiling(C*/ ε)) where C* is the cost of the optimal solution
 Space? # of nodes with g ≤ cost of optimal solution,
O(bceiling(C*/ ε))
 Optimal? Yes – nodes expanded in increasing order of g(n)



 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front



 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front



 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front



 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front



 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front



 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front



 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front



 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front



 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front



 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front
 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front



 Depth-first search
 Expand deepest unexpanded node
 Implementation:
 fringe = LIFO queue, i.e., put successors at front
 Properties of depth-first search
 Complete? No: fails in infinite-depth spaces, spaces
with loops
 Modify to avoid repeated states along path
 complete in finite spaces
 Time? O(bm): terrible if m is much larger than d
 but if solutions are dense, may be much faster than
breadth-first
 Space? O(bm), i.e., linear space!
 Optimal? No



 Depth-limited search
= depth-first search with depth limit l,
i.e., nodes at depth l have no successors

 Recursive implementation:
Iterative deepening search
Iterative deepening search l =0
Iterative deepening search l =1
Iterative deepening search l =2
Iterative deepening search l =3
 Iterative deepening search
 Number of nodes generated in a depth-limited search to
depth d with branching factor b:
NDLS = b0 + b1 + b2 + … + bd-2 + bd-1 + bd

Number of nodes generated in an iterative deepening

search to depth d with branching factor b:
NIDS = (d+1)b0 + d b^1 + (d-1)b^2 + … + 3bd-2 +2bd-1 + 1bd

 For b = 10, d = 5,
 NDLS = 1 + 10 + 100 + 1,000 + 10,000 + 100,000 = 111,111
 NIDS = 6 + 50 + 400 + 3,000 + 20,000 + 100,000 = 123,456

 Overhead = (123,456 - 111,111)/111,111 = 11%




 Properties of iterative
deepening search
 Complete? Yes
 Time? (d+1)b0 + d b1 + (d-1)b2 + … + bd =
O(bd)
 Space? O(bd)
 Optimal? Yes, if step cost = 1



Summary of algorithms
 Repeated states
 Failure to detect repeated states can turn a
linear problem into an exponential one!

Graph search
 Summary
 Problem formulation usually requires abstracting away real-
world details to define a state space that can feasibly be
explored

 Variety of uninformed search strategies

 Iterative deepening search uses only linear space and not

much more time than other uninformed algorithms
