Scribd
Upload
72 views

CS 106: Artificial Intelligence: Informed Search

A* search is an informed search algorithm that uses heuristics to guide the exploration of the search tree. It expands the node with the lowest cost, which is the sum of the path cost so far and the estimated remaining cost to reach the goal. With admissible heuristics, A* is guaranteed to find the lowest-cost path. A* is more efficient than uniform cost search by focusing search toward the goal state.

Uploaded by

ChâuPhạmQuốcHưng
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
72 views

CS 106: Artificial Intelligence: Informed Search

A* search is an informed search algorithm that uses heuristics to guide the exploration of the search tree. It expands the node with the lowest cost, which is the sum of the path cost so far and the estimated remaining cost to reach the goal. With admissible heuristics, A* is guaranteed to find the lowest-cost path. A* is more efficient than uniform cost search by focusing search toward the goal state.

Uploaded by

ChâuPhạmQuốcHưng
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 48

CS 106: Artificial Intelligence

Informed Search

Instructor: Ngoc-Hoang LUONG, PhD


University of Information Technology (UIT), VNU-HCM
[These slides were created by Dan Klein and Pieter Abbeel for CS188 Intro to AI at UC Berkeley. All CS188 materials are available at http://ai.berkeley.edu.]
Today

▪ Informed Search
▪ Heuristics
▪ Greedy Search
▪ A* Search

▪ Tree Search versus


Graph Search
Recap: Search
Recap: Search

▪ Search problem:
▪ States (configurations of the world)
▪ Actions and costs
▪ Successor function (world dynamics)
▪ Start state and goal test

▪ Search tree:
▪ Nodes: represent plans for reaching states
▪ Plans have costs (sum of action costs)

▪ Search algorithm:
▪ Systematically builds a search tree
▪ Chooses an ordering of the fringe (unexplored nodes)
▪ Optimal: finds least-cost plans
Graph Search Pseudo-Code
Uninformed Search
Uniform Cost Search

▪ Strategy: expand lowest path cost … c1


c2
c3

▪ The good: UCS is complete and optimal!

▪ The bad:
▪ Explores options in every “direction” Start Goal
▪ No information about goal location

[Demo: contours UCS empty (L3D1)]


[Demo: contours UCS pacman small maze (L3D3)]
Video of Demo Contours UCS Empty
Video of Demo Contours UCS Pacman Small Maze
Informed Search
Search Heuristics
▪ A heuristic is:
▪ A function that estimates how close a state is to a goal
▪ Designed for a particular search problem
▪ Examples: Manhattan distance, Euclidean distance for
pathing

10

5
11.2
Example: Heuristic Function
{h(x)} = straight line distance to Ho Chi Minh city.
Greedy Search

Strategy: expand the node that seems closest


Greedy Search
Greedy Search
b
▪ Strategy: expand a node that you think is …
closest to a goal state
▪ Heuristic: estimate of distance to nearest goal for
each state

▪ A common case:
b
▪ Best-first takes you straight to the (wrong) goal …

▪ Worst-case: like a badly-guided DFS

[Demo: contours greedy empty (L3D1)]


[Demo: contours greedy pacman small maze (L3D4)]
Video of Demo Contours Greedy (Empty)
Video of Demo Contours Greedy (Pacman Small Maze)
A* Search

Strategy: expand the node with the lowest sum of path cost and estimated cost.
A* Search

UCS Greedy

A*
A* Search
Optimality of A* Tree Search
When should A* terminate?

▪ Should we stop when we enqueue a goal?


h=2

2 A 2

S h=3 h=0 G

2 B 3
h=1

▪ No: only stop when we dequeue a goal


Is A* Optimal?
h=6

1 A 3

S h=7
G h=0

▪ What went wrong?


▪ Actual bad goal cost < estimated good goal cost
▪ We need estimates to be less than actual costs!
Admissible Heuristics
Idea: Admissibility

Inadmissible (pessimistic) heuristics break Admissible (optimistic) heuristics slow down


optimality by trapping good plans on the fringe bad plans but never outweigh true costs
Admissible Heuristics
▪ A heuristic h is admissible (optimistic) if:

where is the true cost to a nearest goal

▪ Example:
15

▪ Coming up with admissible heuristics is most of what’s involved


in using A* in practice.
A* Graph Search Gone Wrong?
State space graph Search tree

A S (0+2)
1
1
S h=4
C
h=1 A (1+4) B (1+1)
h=2 1
2
3 C (2+1) C (3+1)
B

h=1
G G (5+0) G (6+0)

h=0
Tree Search versus Graph Search
Tree Search: Extra Work!
▪ Failure to detect repeated states can cause exponentially more work.

State Graph Search Tree


Tree Search versus Graph Search
▪ In BFS, for example, we shouldn’t bother expanding the circled nodes (why?)

d e p

b c e h r q

a a h r p q f

p q f q c G

q c G a

a
Tree Search Pseudo-Code
Graph Search Pseudo-Code
Graph Search
▪ Idea: never expand a state twice

▪ How to implement:
▪ Tree search + set of expanded states (“closed set”)
▪ Expand the search tree node-by-node, but…
▪ Before expanding a node, check to make sure its state has never been
expanded before
▪ If not new, skip it, if new add to closed set

▪ Important: store the closed set as a set, not a list

▪ Can graph search wreck completeness? Why/why not?

▪ How about optimality?


A* Graph Search Gone Wrong?
State space graph Search tree

A S (0+2)
1
1
S h=4
C
h=1 A (1+4) B (1+1)
h=2 1
2
3 C (2+1) C (3+1)
B

h=1
G G (5+0) G (6+0)

h=0
Consistency of Heuristics
▪ Main idea: estimated heuristic costs ≤ actual costs

A ▪ Admissibility: heuristic cost ≤ actual cost to goal

1 h(A) ≤ actual cost from A to G


h=4 C h=1
▪ Consistency: heuristic “arc” cost ≤ actual cost for each arc
h=2
h(A) – h(C) ≤ cost(A to C)
3
▪ Consequences of consistency:
▪ The f value along a path never decreases
G h(A) ≤ cost(A to C) + h(C)

▪ A* graph search is optimal


Optimality
▪ Tree search:
▪ A* is optimal if heuristic is admissible
▪ UCS is a special case (h = 0)

▪ Graph search:
▪ A* optimal if heuristic is consistent
▪ UCS optimal (h = 0 is consistent)

▪ Consistency implies admissibility

▪ In general, most natural admissible heuristics


tend to be consistent, especially if from
relaxed problems
Properties of A*
Properties of A*

Uniform-Cost A*

b b
… …
UCS vs A* Contours

▪ Uniform-cost expands equally in all


“directions”
Start Goal

▪ A* expands mainly toward the goal,


but does hedge its bets to ensure
optimality Start Goal

[Demo: contours UCS / greedy / A* empty (L3D1)]


[Demo: contours A* pacman small maze (L3D5)]
Video of Demo Contours (Empty) -- UCS
Video of Demo Contours (Empty) -- Greedy
Video of Demo Contours (Empty) – A*
Video of Demo Contours (Pacman Small Maze) – A*
Comparison

Greedy Uniform Cost A*


Video of Demo Pacman (Tiny Maze) – UCS / A*
Video of Demo Empty Water Shallow/Deep – Guess Algorithm
A*: Summary
A*: Summary
▪ A* uses both backward costs and (estimates of) forward costs

▪ A* is optimal with admissible / consistent heuristics

▪ Heuristic design is key: often use relaxed problems

You might also like