Problem‐solving
INFORMED SEARCH STRATEGIES, HEURISTIC FUNCTIONS
Informed search strategy
Informed search strategy is the one that uses problem-specific knowledge beyond the
definition of the problem itself, can find solutions more efficiently than can an
uninformed strategy.
Best-first search
Best-first search is an instance of the general TREE-SEARCH or GRAPH-SEARCH algorithm in which a
node is selected for expansion based on an evaluation function, f(n).
The evaluation function is construed as a cost estimate, so the node with the lowest evaluation is
expanded first
The implementation of best-first graph search is identical to that for uniform-cost search except for
the use the priority queue.
Best-first algorithms include as a component of a heuristic function,
h(n) = estimated cost of the cheapest path from the state at node n to a goal state.
For example, in Romania, one might estimate the cost of the cheapest path from Arad to
Bucharest via the straight-line distance from Arad to Bucharest.
Greedy best-first search
Greedy best-first search tries to expand the node that is closest to the goal, on the
grounds that this is likely to lead to a solution quickly.
It evaluates nodes by using just the heuristic function; that is, f(n) = h(n).
Greedy best-first search
A* search: Minimizing the total estimated solution cost
The most widely known form of best-first search is called A∗ search.
It evaluates nodes by combining g(n) ,the cost tor each the node, and h(n),the cost to
get from the node to the goal.
Since g(n) gives the path cost from the start node to node n, and h(n)is the estimated
cost of the cheapest path from n to the goal, then f(n)
Thus, if we are trying to find the cheapest solution, a reasonable thing to try first is the
node with the lowest value of g(n)+h(n).
It turns out that this strategy is more than just reasonable: provided that the heuristic
function h(n)satisfies certain conditions, A∗ search is both complete and optimal. The
algorithm is identical to UNIFORM-COST-SEARCH except that A∗ uses g+h instead of g.
Conditions for optimality: Admissibility and consistency
Admissible heuristic
• An admissible heuristic is one that never overestimates the cost to reach the goal. Because
g(n) is the actual cost to reach n along the current path, and f(n)=g(n) + h(n).
• Admissible heuristics are by nature optimistic because they think the cost of solving the
problem is less than it actually is.
• Example of an admissible heuristic is the straight-line distance hSLD that we used in getting
to Bucharest. Straight-line distance is admissible because the shortest path between any
two points is a straight line, so the straight line cannot be an over estimate.
Consistency
A second, slightly stronger condition called consistency (or sometimes
monotonicity) is required only for applications of A∗ to graph search.
A heuristic h(n) is consistent if, for every node n and every successor n′ of n
generated by any action a, the estimated cost of reaching the goal from
n is no greater than the step cost of getting to n′ plus the estimated cost of
reaching the goal from n′
RECURSIVE-BEST-FIRST-SEARCH
