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An upper bound on the time complexity of iterative-deepening-A*

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Abstract

This paper establishes an upper bound on the time complexity of iterative-deepening-A* (IDA*) in terms of the number of states that are surely-expanded by A* during a state space tree search. It is shown that given an admissible evaluation function, IDA* surely-expands in the worst caseN(N+1)/2 states, whereN is the number of states that are surely-expanded by A*. The conditions that give rise to the worst case performance of IDA* on any state space tree are described. Worst case examples are also given for uniform and non-uniform state space trees.

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Author notes

  1. Brian G. Patrick

    Present address: Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Collège Militaire Royal, JOJ 1R0, Richelain, Quebec, Canada

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computer Science, McGill University, Montréal, Québec, Canada

    Brian G. Patrick, Mohammed Almulla & Monroe M. Newborn

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  1. Brian G. Patrick
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  2. Mohammed Almulla
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  3. Monroe M. Newborn
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Additional information

This work was supported in part by the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council Grant NSERC3599.

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Patrick, B.G., Almulla, M. & Newborn, M.M. An upper bound on the time complexity of iterative-deepening-A* . Ann Math Artif Intell 5, 265–277 (1992). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01543478

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