Skip to main content

All Questions

Tagged with
Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
0 votes
1 answer
110 views

How do we know that $c(n,a,G) = h^{\ast}(n)$, in the proof that if a heuristic is consistent then it is admissible?

I found a proof that if a heuristic $h$ is consistent, then it is admissible, but I'm confused by one of the steps in the proof. The proof is by induction on $k$, the number of actions from a node $n$ ...
0 votes
0 answers
141 views

What is a good algorithm (and a heuristic) to find the shortest path in a puzzle game?

In a 3D world, there is a Robot, boxes, and switches. The robot's job is to carry boxes (one box at a time) and put them on top of switches to solve the level. All switches must have a box on top for ...
1 vote
0 answers
137 views

Is N the total number of nodes in the frontier plus the number of nodes in the explored list?

I'm studying fundamentals of AI from the classic Russell-Norvig book (3rd edition). I have a small doubt about the effective branching factor, which is defined as follows (section 3.6.1, p. 103): One ...
0 votes
0 answers
327 views

Is possible to perform an early goal test with A* using a consistent heuristic?

I have a doubt about A* goal test. As far as I know an early goal test is performed when a node (representing a certain state) is inserted in the frontier or, to conform with AIMA terminology, when is ...
2 votes
1 answer
4k views

Understanding the proof that A* search is optimal

I don't understand the proof that $A^*$ is optimal. The proof is by contradiction: Assume $A^*$ returns $p$ but there exists a $p'$ that is cheaper. When $p$ is chosen from the frontier, assume $...
13 votes
1 answer
31k views

Why is A* optimal if the heuristic function is admissible?

A heuristic is admissible if it never overestimates the true cost to reach the goal node from $n$. If a heuristic is consistent, then the heuristic value of $n$ is never greater than the cost of its ...
-1 votes
0 answers
59 views

Incorrect node expansion in game board with A* search

I have the following game board below, and we're using A* search to find the optimal path from the agent to the key. There are 8 directions. Up, down, left, right have a cost of 1, and diagonal ...
7 votes
1 answer
396 views

A* is similar to Dijkstra with reduced cost

According to this Wikipedia article If the heuristic $h$ satisfies the additional condition $h(x) \leq d(x, y) + h(y)$ for every edge $(x, y)$ of the graph (where $d$ denotes the length of that edge),...
4 votes
3 answers
9k views

What heuristic to use when doing A* search with multiple targets? [closed]

Usually, using the Manhattan distance as a heuristic function is enough when we do an A* search with one target. However, it seems like for multiple goals, this is not the most useful way. Which ...
3 votes
1 answer
3k views

Is A* with an admissible but inconsistent heuristic optimal?

I understand that, in tree search, an admissible heuristic implies that $A*$ is optimal. The intuitive way I think about this is as follows: Let $P$ and $Q$ be two costs from any respective nodes $p$ ...
1 vote
1 answer
2k views

Which heuristics guarantee the optimality of A*?

The following is a statement and I am trying to figure out if it's true or false and why. Given a non-admissible heuristic function, A* will always give a solution if one exists, but there is no ...
0 votes
1 answer
11k views

How do you calculate the heuristic value in this specific case?

The A* algorithm uses the "evaluation function" $f(n) = g(n) + h(n)$, where $g(n)$ = cost of the path from the start node to node $n$ $h(n)$ = estimated cost of the cheapest path from $n$ to the ...
2 votes
0 answers
158 views

How does heuristic work with multiple agents?

I have a question for heuristic search with multiple agents. I know how heuristic search works with one agent (ex. one Pacman) but I don't really understand it with multiple agents. Let's say we have ...
6 votes
2 answers
3k views

How does A* search work given there are multiple goal states?

When I have read through the fundamentals of AI, I saw a situation (i.e., a search space) which is illustrated in the following picture. These are the heuristic estimates: ...