Informed Seach

Question 1

What is informed search?

Answer 1

A search strategy that uses a heuristic to estimate the cost from the current node to the goal

Question 2

What is a heuristic function h(n)?

Answer 2

It estimates the cost of the cheapest path from node n to the goal.

Question 3

What is Greedy Best-First Search?

Answer 3

search strategy that expands the node with the lowest h(n); not guaranteed to be complete or optimal

Question 4

Why is Greedy Best-First Search not optimal?

Answer 4

It may get stuck in loops or take a longer path if h(n) is misleading.

Question 5

What is A* Search?

Answer 5

A search that uses f(n) = g(n) + h(n), combining actual cost so far and heuristic estimate.

Question 6

What is an admissible heuristic?

Answer 6

A heuristic that never overestimates the true cost to reach the goal.

Question 7

Why does A* Search find optimal solutions?

Answer 7

Because it uses admissible heuristics and evaluates total estimated cost.

Question 8

What is Iterative Deepening A* (IDA*)?

Answer 8

A memory-efficient version of A* that searches with increasing f-cost limits.

Question 9

What is Weighted A* Search?

Answer 9

A* search using f(n) = g(n) + αh(n), where α > 1; faster but not always optimal.