Maximizing over multiple pattern databases speeds up heuristic search

Robert C. Holte, Ariel Felner, Jack Newton, Ram Meshulam, David Furcy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

56 Scopus citations

Abstract

A pattern database (PDB) is a heuristic function stored as a lookup table. This paper considers how best to use a fixed amount (m units) of memory for storing pattern databases. In particular, we examine whether using n pattern databases of size m / n instead of one pattern database of size m improves search performance. In all the state spaces considered, the use of multiple smaller pattern databases reduces the number of nodes generated by IDA*. The paper provides an explanation for this phenomenon based on the distribution of heuristic values that occur during search.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)1123-1136
Number of pages14
JournalArtificial Intelligence
Volume170
Issue number16-17
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 2006
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by the Israeli Science Foundation under grant No 728/06, and by a Discovery grant and a postgraduate scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and an Alberta iCore postgraduate fellowship. This research was also partly supported by NSF awards to Sven Koenig under contracts IIS-9984827 and IIS-0098807. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the sponsoring organizations, agencies, companies or the US government.

Funding

This research was supported in part by the Israeli Science Foundation under grant No 728/06, and by a Discovery grant and a postgraduate scholarship from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada and an Alberta iCore postgraduate fellowship. This research was also partly supported by NSF awards to Sven Koenig under contracts IIS-9984827 and IIS-0098807. The views and conclusions contained in this document are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the sponsoring organizations, agencies, companies or the US government.

FundersFunder number
Israeli Science Foundation728/06
Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
National Science FoundationIIS-9984827, IIS-0098807

    Keywords

    • Admissible heuristics
    • Heuristic search
    • IDA*
    • Pattern databases

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