UNIT 2

Searching Techniques: Introduction, Problem

solving by searching, Searching for solutions,
Uniformed searching techniques, Informed
searching techniques, Local search algorithms,
Adversarial search methods, Search techniques
used in games, Alpha-Beta pruning.
SEARCHING: Search algorithms are one of the most important
areas of Artificial Intelligence.

Problem-solving agents:

In Artificial Intelligence, Search techniques are universal

problem-solving methods. Rational agents or Problem-solving
agents in AI mostly used these search strategies or algorithms to
solve a specific problem and provide the best result. Problem-
solving agents are the goal-based agents and use atomic
representation.
Search: Searching is a step by step procedure to solve a search-problem in a given
search space. A search problem can have three main factors:

Search Space: Search space represents a set of possible solutions, which a system may
have.
Start State: It is a state from where agent begins the search.
Goal test: It is a function which observe the current state and returns whether the goal
state is achieved or not.
Search tree: A tree representation of search problem is called Search tree. The root of
the search tree is the root node which is corresponding to the initial state.
Actions: It gives the description of all the available actions to the agent.
Transition model: A description of what each action do, can be represented as a
transition model.
Path Cost: It is a function which assigns a numeric cost to each path.
Solution: It is an action sequence which leads from the start node to the goal node.
Optimal Solution: If a solution has the lowest cost among all solutions.
Properties of Search Algorithms:
Following are the four essential properties of search algorithms to compare
the efficiency of these algorithms:
Completeness: A search algorithm is said to be complete if it guarantees to
return a solution if at least any solution exists for any random input.
Optimality: If a solution found for an algorithm is guaranteed to be the best
solution (lowest path cost) among all other solutions, then such a solution
for is said to be an optimal solution.
Time Complexity: Time complexity is a measure of time for an algorithm
to complete its task.
Space Complexity: It is the maximum storage space required at any point
during the search, as the complexity of the problem.
Types of search algorithms
Based on the search problems we can classify the search algorithms into uninformed
(Blind search) search and informed search (Heuristic search) algorithms.
Uninformed/Blind Search:

The uninformed search does not contain any domain knowledge such as closeness, the
location of the goal. It operates in a brute-force way as it only includes information
about how to traverse the tree and how to identify leaf and goal nodes. Uninformed
search applies a way in which search tree is searched without any information about the
search space like initial state operators and test for the goal, so it is also called blind
search.

Informed Search
Informed search algorithms use domain knowledge. In an informed search, problem
information is available which can guide the search. Informed search strategies can
find a solution more efficiently than an uninformed search strategy. Informed search is
also called a Heuristic search.
A heuristic is a way which might not always be guaranteed for best solutions but
guaranteed to find a good solution in reasonable time.
It examines each node of the tree until it achieves the goal node.
Parameters Informed Search Uninformed Search

It uses knowledge during the process of It does not require using any knowledge
Utilizing Knowledge
searching. during the process of searching.

Finding the solution is much slower

Speed Finding the solution is quicker.
comparatively.

Completion It can be both complete and incomplete. It is always bound to be complete.

Due to a quicker search, it consumes Due to slow searches, it consumes

Consumption of Time
much less time. comparatively more time.

Cost Incurred The expenses are much lower. The expenses are comparatively higher.
 Parameters Informed Search Uninformed Search
The AI does not get any
The AI gets suggestions suggestions regarding what
Suggestion/ Direction regarding how and where to find solution to find and where to find
a solution to any problem. it. Whatever knowledge it gets is
out of the information provided.

It costs less and generates It costs more and generates

Efficiency quicker results. Thus, it is slower results. Thus, it is
comparatively more efficient. comparatively less efficient.

Implementation is shorter using The implementation is lengthier

Length of Implementation
AI. using AI.

A few examples include Breadth-

A few examples include Graph
Examples First Search or BFS and Depth-
Search and Greedy Search.
First Search or DFS.
Following aspects are considered before solving any AI problem :
(i) What are the main assumptions about the problem?
(ii) What kind of AI techniques are required to solve it (E.g : Game
playing, theorem proving, robotics, expert system, NLP etc.)
(iii) How intelligence level has to be modeled?
(iv) How we will know when we have reached our goal state of solution.
Uninformed Search Algorithms
Uninformed search is a class of general-purpose search algorithms which
operates in brute force-way. Uninformed search algorithms do not have
additional information about state or search space other than how to traverse
the tree, so it is also called blind search.
Following are the various types of uninformed search algorithms:
1. Breadth-first Search
2. Depth-first Search
3. Depth-limited Search
4. Iterative deepening depth-first search
5. Uniform cost search
6. Bidirectional Search
Breadth-first Search:
• Breadth-first search is the most common search strategy for traversing a tree
or graph. This algorithm searches breadthwise in a tree or graph, so it is
called breadth-first search.
• BFS algorithm starts searching from the root node of the tree and expands
all successor node at the current level before moving to nodes of next level.
• The breadth-first search algorithm is an example of a general-graph search
algorithm.
• Breadth-first search implemented using FIFO queue data structure.
Advantages:
• BFS will provide a solution if any solution exists.
• If there are more than one solutions for a given problem, then BFS will
provide the minimal solution which requires the least number of steps.
Disadvantages:

• It requires lots of memory since each level of the

tree must be saved into memory to expand the next
level.
• BFS needs lots of time if the solution is far away
from the root node
In the above graph, minimum path 'P' can be found by using the BFS that will
start from Node A and end at Node E. The algorithm uses two queues, namely
QUEUE1 and QUEUE2. QUEUE1 holds all the nodes that are to be
processed, while QUEUE2 holds all the nodes that are processed and deleted
from QUEUE1.
Time Complexity: Time Complexity of BFS algorithm can be obtained
by the number of nodes traversed in BFS until the shallowest Node.
Where the d= depth of shallowest solution and b is a node at every state. T
(b) = 1+b2+b3+.......+ bd= O (bd )

Space Complexity: Space complexity of BFS algorithm is given by the

Memory size of frontier which is O(bd ).

Completeness: BFS is complete, which means if the shallowest goal node

is at some finite depth, then BFS will find a solution.

Optimality: BFS is optimal if path cost is a non-decreasing function of

the depth of the node.
Depth-first Search

• Depth-first search is a recursive algorithm for traversing a tree or graph data

structure.
• It is called the depth-first search because it starts from the root node and follows
each path to its greatest depth node before moving to the next path.
• DFS uses a stack data structure for its implementation.
• The process of the DFS algorithm is similar to the BFS algorithm.

Note: Backtracking is an algorithm technique for finding all possible solutions using
recursion.
Advantages
• DFS requires very less memory as it only needs to store a stack of the nodes on the
path from root node to the current node.
• It takes less time to reach to the goal node than BFS algorithm (if it traverses in the
right path).

Disadvantage:
• There is the possibility that many states keep re-occurring, and there is no
guarantee of finding the solution.
• DFS algorithm goes for deep down searching and sometime it may go to the
infinite loop.
Time Complexity: Time complexity of DFS will be equivalent to the
node traversed by the algorithm.
It is given by: T(n)= 1+ n2+ n3 +.........+ nm=O(nm)
Where, m= maximum depth of any node and this can be much larger than
d (Shallowest solution depth)
Space Complexity: DFS algorithm needs to store only single path from
the root node, hence space complexity of DFS is equivalent to the size of
the fringe set, which is O(bm).
Optimal: DFS search algorithm is non-optimal, as it may generate a large
number of steps or high cost to reach to the goal node.
Depth-Limited Search Algorithm:
• A depth-limited search algorithm is similar to depth-first search with a predetermined
limit.
• Depth-limited search can solve the drawback of the infinite path in the Depth-first
search. In this algorithm, the node at the depth limit will treat as it has no successor
nodes further.
• Depth-limited search can be terminated with two Conditions of failure:
 Standard failure value: It indicates that problem does not have any solution.
 Cutoff failure value: It defines no solution for the problem within a given depth limit.
Advantages:
Depth-limited search is Memory efficient.
Disadvantages:
o Depth-limited search also has a disadvantage of incompleteness.
o It may not be optimal if the problem has more than one solution
Iterative Deepening Depth First Search (IDDFS)

It is a search algorithm that uses the combined power of the BFS and DFS
algorithms. It is iterative in nature. It searches for the best depth in each iteration.
It performs the Algorithm until it reaches the goal node. The algorithm is set to
search until a certain depth and the depth keeps increasing at every iteration until
it reaches the goal state.
Advantages
•It combines the benefits of BFS and DFS search algorithms in terms
of fast search and memory efficiency.
Disadvantages
•The main drawback of IDDFS is that it repeats all the work from the
previous phase.

•Complete: Yes (by limiting the depth)

•Time Complexity: O(bd)
•Space complexity: O(bd)
•Optimal: Yes (if step cost is uniform)
•Systematic: It’s not systematic.
Uniform-cost Search Algorithm:

Uniform-cost search is a searching algorithm used for traversing a weighted tree or graph. This algorithm
comes into play when a different cost is available for each edge. The primary goal of the uniform-cost
search is to find a path to the goal node which has the lowest cumulative cost. Uniform-cost search
expands nodes according to their path costs form the root node. It can be used to solve any graph/tree
where the optimal cost is in demand. A uniform-cost search algorithm is implemented by the priority
queue. It gives maximum priority to the lowest cumulative cost. Uniform cost search is equivalent to BFS
algorithm if the path cost of all edges is the same.

Advantages:

Uniform cost search is optimal because at every state the path with the least cost is chosen.

Disadvantages:

It does not care about the number of steps involve in searching and only concerned about path cost.
Due to which this algorithm may be stuck in an infinite loop.
Time Complexity:

Let C* is Cost of the optimal solution, and ε is each step to get closer to the goal
node. Then the number of steps is = C*/ε+1. Here we have taken +1, as we start
from state 0 and end to C*/ε.

Hence, the worst-case time complexity of Uniform-cost search is O(b + [C*/ε])/.

Space Complexity:

The same logic is for space complexity so, the worst-case space complexity of
Uniform-cost search is O(b + [C*/ε]).

Optimal:

Uniform-cost search is always optimal as it only selects a path with the lowest path
cost.
Bidirectional Search Algorithm:
Bidirectional search algorithm runs two simultaneous searches, one form
initial state called as forward-search and other from goal node called as
backward-search, to find the goal node. Bidirectional search replaces one
single search graph with two small subgraphs in which one starts the
search from an initial vertex and other starts from goal vertex. The
search stops when these two graphs intersect each other.
Bidirectional search can use search techniques such as BFS, DFS, DLS,
etc.
Advantages:
•Bidirectional search is fast.
•Bidirectional search requires less memory
Disadvantages:
•Implementation of the bidirectional search tree is difficult.
•In bidirectional search, one should know the goal state in advance.
Completeness: Bidirectional Search is complete if we use
BFS in both searches.

Time Complexity: Time complexity of bidirectional search

using BFS is O(bd).

Space Complexity: Space complexity of bidirectional search

is O(bd).

Optimal: Bidirectional search is Optimal.

The Uninformed Search strategy for searching is a multipurpose strategy that
combines the power of unguided search and works in a brute-force way. The
algorithms of this strategy can be applied to a variety of problems in computer
science as they don’t have the information related to state space and target
problems, and they do not know how to traverse trees.
•Uninformed algorithms are used in search problems, where the
goal is to find a solution by exploring a large search space.
•Uninformed algorithms are often simple to implement and can be
effective in solving certain problems, but they may also be less
efficient than informed algorithms that use heuristics to guide their
search.
Informed Search Algorithms

• 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: 1. 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:
a. Best First Search Algorithm(Greedy search)
b. A* Search Algorithm
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).
Where, 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:
Let OPEN be a priority queue
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.
 AO* Algorithm:
Our real-life situations can’t be exactly decomposed into either AND tree or OR tree but is always a
combination of both. So, we need an AO* algorithm where O stands for ‘ordered’. AO* algorithm
represents a part of the search graph that has been explicitly generated so far.
AO* algorithm is given as follows:
Step-1: Create an initial graph with a single node (start node).
Step-2: Transverse the graph following the current path, accumulating node that has not yet been expanded
or solved.
Step-3: Select any of these nodes and explore it. If it has no successors then call this value- FUTILITY else
calculate f'(n) for each of the successors.
Step-4: If f'(n)=0, then mark the node as SOLVED.
Step-5: Change the value of f'(n) for the newly created node to reflect its successors by backpropagation.
Step-6: Whenever possible use the most promising routes, If a node is marked as SOLVED then mark the
parent node as SOLVED.
Step-7: If the starting node is SOLVED or value is greater than FUTILITY then stop else repeat from Step-
2.