Unit 2: Search Techniques

Search Algorithms in Artificial Intelligence

Search algorithms are one of the most important areas of Artificial Intelligence. This
topic will explain all about the search algorithms in AI.

 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. In this topic, we will
learn various problem-solving search algorithms.

 Search Algorithm Terminologies:

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:

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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.

Heuristic Function

Hill Climbing

Simulated Annealing

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

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search space like initial state operators and test for the goal, so it is also called blind
search. It examines each node of the tree until it achieves the goal node.

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.

Uninformed/Blind Search:
1. 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.

Example:

In the below tree structure, we have shown the traversing of the tree using BFS
algorithm from the root node S to goal node K. BFS search algorithm traverse in layers,
so it will follow the path which is shown by the dotted arrow, and the traversed path
will be:

S---> A--->B---->C--->D---->G--->H--->E---->F---->I---->K

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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.

2. Depth-first Search

Depth-first search isa 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.

Advantage:

 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:

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  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.

Example:

In the below search tree, we have shown the flow of depth-first search, and it will
follow the order as:

Root node--->Left node ----> right node.

It will start searching from root node S, and traverse A, then B, then D and E, after
traversing E, it will backtrack the tree as E has no other successor and still goal node is
not found. After backtracking it will traverse node C and then G, and here it will
terminate as it found goal node.

Completeness: DFS search algorithm is complete within finite state space as it will
expand every node within a limited search tree.

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.

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3. 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:

o Standard failure value: It indicates that problem does not have any solution.
o Cutoff failure value: It defines no solution for the problem within a given depth
limit.

Advantages:

 Depth-limited search is Memory efficient.

Disadvantages:

 Depth-limited search also has a disadvantage of incompleteness.

 It may not be optimal if the problem has more than one solution.

Example:

Completeness: DLS search algorithm is complete if the solution is above the depth-
limit.

Time Complexity: Time complexity of DLS algorithm is O(bℓ).

Space Complexity: Space complexity of DLS algorithm is O(b×ℓ).

Optimal: Depth-limited search can be viewed as a special case of DFS, and it is also
not optimal even if ℓ>d.

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4. 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.

Example:

Completeness: Uniform-cost search is complete, such as if there is a solution, UCS will

find it.

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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 isO(b1 + [C*/ε])/.

Space Complexity: The same logic is for space complexity so, the worst-case space
complexity of Uniform-cost search is O(b1 + [C*/ε]).

Optimal: Uniform-cost search is always optimal as it only selects a path with the
lowest path cost.

5. Iterative deepening depth-first Search:

The iterative deepening algorithm is a combination of DFS and BFS algorithms. This
search algorithm finds out the best depth limit and does it by gradually increasing the
limit until a goal is found.

This algorithm performs depth-first search up to a certain "depth limit", and it keeps
increasing the depth limit after each iteration until the goal node is found.

This Search algorithm combines the benefits of Breadth-first search's fast search and
depth-first search's memory efficiency.

The iterative search algorithm is useful uninformed search when search space is large,
and depth of goal node is unknown.

Advantages:

 It combines the benefits of BFS and DFS search algorithm in terms of fast
search and memory efficiency.

Disadvantages:

 The main drawback of IDDFS is that it repeats all the work of the previous
phase.

Example:

Following tree structure is showing the iterative deepening depth-first search. IDDFS
algorithm performs various iterations until it does not find the goal node. The iteration
performed by the algorithm is given as:

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1'st Iteration-----> A

2'nd Iteration----> A, B, C

3'rd Iteration------>A, B, D, E, C, F, G

4'th Iteration------>A, B, D, H, I, E, C, F, K, G

In the fourth iteration, the algorithm will find the goal node.

Completeness: This algorithm is complete is ifthe branching factor is finite.

Time Complexity: Let's suppose b is the branching factor and depth is d then the
worst-case time complexity is O(bd).

Space Complexity: The space complexity of IDDFS will be O(bd).

Optimal: IDDFS algorithm is optimal if path cost is a non- decreasing function of the
depth of the node.

6. 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 sub
graphs 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

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Disadvantages:

 Implementation of the bidirectional search tree is difficult.

 In bidirectional search, one should know the goal state in advance.

Example:

In the below search tree, bidirectional search algorithm is applied. This algorithm
divides one graph/tree into two sub-graphs. It starts traversing from node 1 in the
forward direction and starts from goal node 16 in the backward direction.

The algorithm terminates at node 9 where two searches meet.

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.

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 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:

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:

o Best First Search Algorithm(Greedy search)

o A* Search Algorithm

1.) Best-first Search Algorithm (Greedy Search):

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 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.

1. f(n)= g(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:

o Step 1: Place the starting node into the OPEN list.

o Step 2: If the OPEN list is empty, Stop and return failure.
o 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.
o Step 4: Expand the node n, and generate the successors of node n.
o 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.
o 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.
o Step 7: Return to Step 2.

Advantages:

o Best first search can switch between BFS and DFS by gaining the advantages of
both the algorithms.
o This algorithm is more efficient than BFS and DFS algorithms.

Disadvantages:

o It can behave as an unguided depth-first search in the worst case scenario.

o It can get stuck in a loop as DFS.
o This algorithm is not optimal.

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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.

In this search example, we are using two lists which are OPEN and CLOSED Lists.
Following are the iteration for traversing the above example.

Expand the nodes of S and put in the CLOSED list

Initialization: Open [A, B], Closed [S]

Iteration 1: Open [A], Closed [S, B]

Iteration2: Open [E, F, A], Closed[S, B]

: Open [E, A], Closed [S, B, F]

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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.

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.

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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:

o A* search algorithm is the best algorithm than other search algorithms.

o A* search algorithm is optimal and complete.
o This algorithm can solve very complex problems.

Disadvantages:

o It does not always produce the shortest path as it mostly based on heuristics and
approximation.
o A* search algorithm has some complexity issues.
o 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.

Example:

In this example, we will traverse the given graph using the A* algorithm. The heuristic
value of all states is given in the below table so we will calculate the f(n) of each state
using the formula f(n)= g(n) + h(n), where g(n) is the cost to reach any node from start
state.

Here we will use OPEN and CLOSED list.

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Solution:

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:

o A* algorithm returns the path which occurred first, and it does not search for all
remaining paths.
o The efficiency of A* algorithm depends on the quality of heuristic.
o A* algorithm expands all nodes which satisfy the condition f(n)<="" li="">

Complete: A* algorithm is complete as long as:

o Branching factor is finite.

o Cost at every action is fixed.

Optimal: A* search algorithm is optimal if it follows below two conditions:

o 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.

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 o 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)

Hill Climbing Algorithm in Artificial Intelligence

Hill climbing algorithm is a local search algorithm which continuously moves in the
direction of increasing elevation/value to find the peak of the mountain or best solution
to the problem. It terminates when it reaches a peak value where no neighbor has a
higher value.

Hill climbing algorithm is a technique which is used for optimizing the mathematical
problems. One of the widely discussed examples of Hill climbing algorithm is
Traveling-salesman Problem in which we need to minimize the distance traveled by the
salesman.

It is also called greedy local search as it only looks to its good immediate neighbor state
and not beyond that.

A node of hill climbing algorithm has two components which are state and value.

Hill Climbing is mostly used when a good heuristic is available.

In this algorithm, we don't need to maintain and handle the search tree or graph as it
only keeps a single current state.

Features of Hill Climbing:

Following are some main features of Hill Climbing Algorithm:

Generate and Test variant: Hill Climbing is the variant of Generate and Test method.
The Generate and Test method produce feedback which helps to decide which direction
to move in the search space.

Greedy approach: Hill-climbing algorithm search moves in the direction which

optimizes the cost.

No backtracking: It does not backtrack the search space, as it does not remember the
previous states.

State-space Diagram for Hill Climbing:

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The state-space landscape is a graphical representation of the hill-climbing algorithm
which is showing a graph between various states of algorithm and Objective
function/Cost.

On Y-axis we have taken the function which can be an objective function or cost
function, and state-space on the x-axis. If the function on Y-axis is cost then, the goal of
search is to find the global minimum and local minimum. If the function of Y-axis is
Objective function, then the goal of the search is to find the global maximum and local
maximum.

Different regions in the state space landscape:

Local Maximum: Local maximum is a state which is better than its neighbor states, but
there is also another state which is higher than it.

Global Maximum: Global maximum is the best possible state of state space landscape.
It has the highest value of objective function.

Current state: It is a state in a landscape diagram where an agent is currently present.

Flat local maximum: It is a flat space in the landscape where all the neighbor states of
current states have the same value.

Shoulder: It is a plateau region which has an uphill edge.

Types of Hill Climbing Algorithm:

o Simple hill Climbing:
o Steepest-Ascent hill-climbing:
o Stochastic hill Climbing:

1. Simple Hill Climbing:

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Simple hill climbing is the simplest way to implement a hill climbing algorithm. It only
evaluates the neighbor node state at a time and selects the first one which
optimizes current cost and set it as a current state. It only checks it's one successor
state, and if it finds better than the current state, then move else be in the same state.

This algorithm has the following features:

o Less time consuming

o Less optimal solution and the solution is not guaranteed

Algorithm for Simple Hill Climbing:

o Step 1: Evaluate the initial state, if it is goal state then return success and Stop.
o Step 2: Loop Until a solution is found or there is no new operator left to apply.
o Step 3: Select and apply an operator to the current state.
o Step 4: Check new state:

a. If it is goal state, then return success and quit.

b. Else if it is better than the current state then assign new state as a current
state.
c. Else if not better than the current state, then return to step2.
o Step 5: Exit.

2. Steepest-Ascent hill climbing:

The steepest-Ascent algorithm is a variation of simple hill climbing algorithm. This

algorithm examines all the neighboring nodes of the current state and selects one
neighbor node which is closest to the goal state. This algorithm consumes more time as
it searches for multiple neighbors

Algorithm for Steepest-Ascent hill climbing:

o Step 1: Evaluate the initial state, if it is goal state then return success and stop,
else make current state as initial state.
o Step 2: Loop until a solution is found or the current state does not change.

a. Let SUCC be a state such that any successor of the current state will be
better than it.
b. For each operator that applies to the current state:

a. Apply the new operator and generate a new state.

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 b. Evaluate the new state.
c. If it is goal state, then return it and quit, else compare it to the
SUCC.
d. If it is better than SUCC, then set new state as SUCC.
e. If the SUCC is better than the current state, then set current state
to SUCC.
o Step 5: Exit.

3. Stochastic hill climbing:

Stochastic hill climbing does not examine for all its neighbor before moving. Rather,
this search algorithm selects one neighbor node at random and decides whether to
choose it as a current state or examine another state.

Problems in Hill Climbing Algorithm:

1. Local Maximum: A local maximum is a peak state in the landscape which is better
than each of its neighboring states, but there is another state also present which is higher
than the local maximum.

Solution: Backtracking technique can be a solution of the local maximum in state space
landscape. Create a list of the promising path so that the algorithm can backtrack the
search space and explore other paths as well.

2. Plateau: A plateau is the flat area of the search space in which all the neighbor states
of the current state contains the same value, because of this algorithm does not find any
best direction to move. A hill-climbing search might be lost in the plateau area.

Solution: The solution for the plateau is to take big steps or very little steps while
searching, to solve the problem. Randomly select a state which is far away from the
current state so it is possible that the algorithm could find non-plateau region.

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3. Ridges: A ridge is a special form of the local maximum. It has an area which is
higher than its surrounding areas, but itself has a slope, and cannot be reached in a
single move.

Solution: With the use of bidirectional search, or by moving in different directions, we

can improve this problem.

Simulated Annealing:

A hill-climbing algorithm which never makes a move towards a lower value guaranteed
to be incomplete because it can get stuck on a local maximum. And if algorithm applies
a random walk, by moving a successor, then it may complete but not
efficient. Simulated Annealing is an algorithm which yields both efficiency and
completeness.

In mechanical term Annealing is a process of hardening a metal or glass to a high

temperature then cooling gradually, so this allows the metal to reach a low-energy
crystalline state. The same process is used in simulated annealing in which the
algorithm picks a random move, instead of picking the best move. If the random move
improves the state, then it follows the same path. Otherwise, the algorithm follows the
path which has a probability of less than 1 or it moves downhill and chooses another
path.

Crypt Arithmetic Problem:

In the crypt-arithmetic problem, some letters are used to assign digits to it. Like ten
different letters are holding digit values from 0 to 9 to perform arithmetic operations
correctly. There are two words are given and another word is given an answer of
addition for those two words.

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As an example, we can say that two words ‘BASE’ and ‘BALL’, and the result is
‘GAMES’. Now if we try to add BASE and BALL by their symbolic digits, we will get
the answer GAMES.
NOTE &minuns; There must be ten letters maximum, otherwise it cannot be solved.
Input and Output
Input:
This algorithm will take three words.
BASE
BALL
----------
GAMES
Output:
It will show which letter holds which number from 0 – 9.
For this case it is like this.

BASE 2461
BALL 2455
--------- ---------
GAMES 04916

Videos for examples of Crypt Arithmetic Problem:

L46: CryptArithmetic Problem in Artificial Intelligence | TO+GO = OUT &

SEND+MORE= MONEY Solutions - Bing video

L50: CryptArithmetic Problem in Artificial Intelligence | CROSS + ROADS =

DANGER Solution - Bing video

SEND+MORE=MONEY Solution | Crypt arithmetic Problem | Brain Teasers | Math

Puzzle | Zero Math - Bing video

Constraint satisfaction problems

(CSPs) are mathematical questions defined as a set of objects whose state must satisfy a
number of constraints or limitations. CSPs represent the entities in a problem as a
homogeneous collection of finite constraints over variables, which is solved

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by constraint satisfaction methods. CSPs are the subject of research in both artificial
intelligence and operations research, since the regularity in their formulation provides a
common basis to analyze and solve problems of many seemingly unrelated
families. CSPs often exhibit high complexity, requiring a combination
of heuristics and combinatorial search methods to be solved in a reasonable time.

Graph Coloring
Graph coloring problem is to assign colors to certain elements of a graph subject to
certain constraints.
Vertex coloring is the most common graph coloring problem. The problem is, given
m colors, find a way of coloring the vertices of a graph such that no two adjacent
vertices are colored using same color. The other graph coloring problems like Edge
Coloring (No vertex is incident to two edges of same color) and Face
Coloring (Geographical Map Coloring) can be transformed into vertex coloring.
Method to Color a Graph
The steps required to color a graph G with n number of vertices are as follows −
Step 1 − Arrange the vertices of the graph in some order.
Step 2 − Choose the first vertex and color it with the first color.
Step 3 − Choose the next vertex and color it with the lowest numbered color that has
not been colored on any vertices adjacent to it. If all the adjacent vertices are colored
with this color, assign a new color to it. Repeat this step until all the vertices are
colored.
Example

In the above figure, at first vertex a is colored red. As the adjacent vertices of vertex a
are again adjacent, vertex b and vertex d are colored with different color, green and
blue respectively. Then vertex c is colored as red as no adjacent vertex of c is colored
red. Hence, we could color the graph by 3 colors. Hence, the chromatic number of the
graph is 3.

Water jug problem in AI:

In the water jug problem in Artificial Intelligence, we are provided with two
jugs: one having the capacity to hold 3 gallons of water and the other has the
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capacity to hold 4 gallons of water. There is no other measuring equipment
available and the jugs also do not have any kind of marking on them. So, the
agent’s task here is to fill the 4-gallon jug with 2 gallons of water by using only
these two jugs and no other material. Initially, both our jugs are empty.

So, to solve this problem, following set of rules were proposed:

Production rules for solving the water jug

problem
Here, let x denote the 4-gallon jug and y denote the 3-gallon jug.

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Mini-Max Algorithm in Artificial Intelligence
o Mini-max algorithm is a recursive or backtracking algorithm which is used in
decision-making and game theory. It provides an optimal move for the player
assuming that opponent is also playing optimally.
o Mini-Max algorithm uses recursion to search through the game-tree.
o Min-Max algorithm is mostly used for game playing in AI. Such as Chess,
Checkers, tic-tac-toe, go, and various tow-players game. This Algorithm
computes the minimax decision for the current state.
o In this algorithm two players play the game, one is called MAX and other is
called MIN.
o Both the players fight it as the opponent player gets the minimum benefit while
they get the maximum benefit.

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 o Both Players of the game are opponent of each other, where MAX will select
the maximized value and MIN will select the minimized value.
o The minimax algorithm performs a depth-first search algorithm for the
exploration of the complete game tree.
o The minimax algorithm proceeds all the way down to the terminal node of the
tree, then backtrack the tree as the recursion.

Working of Min-Max Algorithm:

o The working of the minimax algorithm can be easily described using an
example. Below we have taken an example of game-tree which is representing
the two-player game.
o In this example, there are two players one is called Maximizer and other is
called Minimizer.
o Maximizer will try to get the Maximum possible score, and Minimizer will try
to get the minimum possible score.
o This algorithm applies DFS, so in this game-tree, we have to go all the way
through the leaves to reach the terminal nodes.
o At the terminal node, the terminal values are given so we will compare those
value and backtrack the tree until the initial state occurs. Following are the main
steps involved in solving the two-player game tree:

Step-1: In the first step, the algorithm generates the entire game-tree and apply the
utility function to get the utility values for the terminal states. In the below tree
diagram, let's take A is the initial state of the tree. Suppose maximizer takes first turn
which has worst-case initial value =- infinity, and minimizer will take next turn which
has worst-case initial value = +infinity.

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Step 2: Now, first we find the utilities value for the Maximizer, its initial value is -∞, so
we will compare each value in terminal state with initial value of Maximizer and
determines the higher nodes values. It will find the maximum among the all.

o For node D max(-1,- -∞) => max(-1,4)= 4

o For Node E max(2, -∞) => max(2, 6)= 6
o For Node F max(-3, -∞) => max(-3,-5) = -3
o For node G max(0, -∞) = max(0, 7) = 7

Step 3: In the next step, it's a turn for minimizer, so it will compare all nodes value with
+∞, and will find the 3rd layer node values.

o For node B= min(4,6) = 4

o For node C= min (-3, 7) = -3

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Step 4: Now it's a turn for Maximizer, and it will again choose the maximum of all
nodes value and find the maximum value for the root node. In this game tree, there are
only 4 layers, hence we reach immediately to the root node, but in real games, there will
be more than 4 layers.

o For node A max(4, -3)= 4

That was the complete workflow of the minimax two player game.

Properties of Mini-Max algorithm:

o Complete- Min-Max algorithm is Complete. It will definitely find a solution (if
exist), in the finite search tree.
o Optimal- Min-Max algorithm is optimal if both opponents are playing
optimally.
o Time complexity- As it performs DFS for the game-tree, so the time
complexity of Min-Max algorithm is O(bm), where b is branching factor of the
game-tree, and m is the maximum depth of the tree.
o Space Complexity- Space complexity of Mini-max algorithm is also similar to
DFS which is O(bm).

Limitation of the minimax Algorithm:

The main drawback of the minimax algorithm is that it gets really slow for complex
games such as Chess, go, etc. This type of games has a huge branching factor, and the
player has lots of choices to decide. This limitation of the minimax algorithm can be
improved from alpha-beta pruning which we have discussed in the next topic.

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Alpha-Beta Pruning
o Alpha-beta pruning is a modified version of the minimax algorithm. It is an
optimization technique for the minimax algorithm.
o As we have seen in the minimax search algorithm that the number of game
states it has to examine are exponential in depth of the tree. Since we cannot
eliminate the exponent, but we can cut it to half. Hence there is a technique by
which without checking each node of the game tree we can compute the correct
minimax decision, and this technique is called pruning. This involves two
threshold parameter Alpha and beta for future expansion, so it is called alpha-
beta pruning. It is also called as Alpha-Beta Algorithm.
o Alpha-beta pruning can be applied at any depth of a tree, and sometimes it not
only prune the tree leaves but also entire sub-tree.
o The two-parameter can be defined as:

a. Alpha: The best (highest-value) choice we have found so far at any

point along the path of Maximizer. The initial value of alpha is -∞.
b. Beta: The best (lowest-value) choice we have found so far at any point
along the path of Minimizer. The initial value of beta is +∞.
o The Alpha-beta pruning to a standard minimax algorithm returns the same move
as the standard algorithm does, but it removes all the nodes which are not really
affecting the final decision but making algorithm slow. Hence by pruning these
nodes, it makes the algorithm fast.

Condition for Alpha-beta pruning:

The main condition which required for alpha-beta pruning is:

α>=β

Key points about alpha-beta pruning:

o The Max player will only update the value of alpha.
o The Min player will only update the value of beta.
o While backtracking the tree, the node values will be passed to upper nodes
instead of values of alpha and beta.
o We will only pass the alpha, beta values to the child nodes.

Working of Alpha-Beta Pruning:

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Let's take an example of two-player search tree to understand the working of Alpha-
beta pruning

Step 1: At the first step the, Max player will start first move from node A where α= -∞
and β= +∞, these value of alpha and beta passed down to node B where again α= -∞ and
β= +∞, and Node B passes the same value to its child D.

Step 2: At Node D, the value of α will be calculated as its turn for Max. The value of α
is compared with firstly 2 and then 3, and the max (2, 3) = 3 will be the value of α at
node D and node value will also 3.

Step 3: Now algorithm backtrack to node B, where the value of β will change as this is
a turn of Min, Now β= +∞, will compare with the available subsequent nodes value, i.e.
min (∞, 3) = 3, hence at node B now α= -∞, and β= 3.

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In the next step, algorithm traverse the next successor of Node B which is node E, and
the values of α= -∞, and β= 3 will also be passed.

Step 4: At node E, Max will take its turn, and the value of alpha will change. The
current value of alpha will be compared with 5, so max (-∞, 5) = 5, hence at node E α=
5 and β= 3, where α>=β, so the right successor of E will be pruned, and algorithm will
not traverse it, and the value at node E will be 5.

Step 5: At next step, algorithm again backtrack the tree, from node B to node A. At
node A, the value of alpha will be changed the maximum available value is 3 as max (-
∞, 3)= 3, and β= +∞, these two values now passes to right successor of A which is
Node C.

At node C, α=3 and β= +∞, and the same values will be passed on to node F.

Step 6: At node F, again the value of α will be compared with left child which is 0, and
max(3,0)= 3, and then compared with right child which is 1, and max(3,1)= 3 still α
remains 3, but the node value of F will become 1.

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Step 7: Node F returns the node value 1 to node C, at C α= 3 and β= +∞, here the value
of beta will be changed, it will compare with 1 so min (∞, 1) = 1. Now at C, α=3 and β=
1, and again it satisfies the condition α>=β, so the next child of C which is G will be
pruned, and the algorithm will not compute the entire sub-tree G.

Step 8: C now returns the value of 1 to A here the best value for A is max (3, 1) = 3.
Following is the final game tree which is the showing the nodes which are computed
and nodes which has never computed. Hence the optimal value for the maximizer is 3
for this example.

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Move Ordering in Alpha-Beta pruning:

The effectiveness of alpha-beta pruning is highly dependent on the order in which each
node is examined. Move order is an important aspect of alpha-beta pruning.

It can be of two types:

o Worst ordering: In some cases, alpha-beta pruning algorithm does not prune
any of the leaves of the tree, and works exactly as minimax algorithm. In this
case, it also consumes more time because of alpha-beta factors, such a move of
pruning is called worst ordering. In this case, the best move occurs on the right
side of the tree. The time complexity for such an order is O(bm).
o Ideal ordering: The ideal ordering for alpha-beta pruning occurs when lots of
pruning happens in the tree, and best moves occur at the left side of the tree. We
apply DFS hence it first search left of the tree and go deep twice as minimax
algorithm in the same amount of time. Complexity in ideal ordering is O(bm/2).

Rules to find good ordering:

Following are some rules to find good ordering in alpha-beta pruning:

o Occur the best move from the shallowest node.

o Order the nodes in the tree such that the best nodes are checked first.
o Use domain knowledge while finding the best move. Ex: for Chess, try order:
captures first, then threats, then forward moves, backward moves.
o We can bookkeep the states, as there is a possibility that states may repeat.

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