Week 2 on state-space search

A state-space search problem is (partially) specified by

  • • a set of states
  • • a distinguished state called the start state
  • • for each state, a set of actions available to the agent in that state
  • • an action function that, given a state and an action, returns a new state
  • • a goal specified as a Boolean function, goal(s) that is true when state s satisfies the goal, in which case we say that s is a goal state

In approximately 100 words, describe a task in an application area that you think would be well accomplished through state-space search. Include outlines of what the states are in your task, goal states, start state, and actions (aka operators). Your chosen task can be a well known task, or a peculiar task of your own design. There is no need to include a reference to a paper or other source for full credit on this week’s post (but I encourage you too, and if you got the idea from a source, please do cite the source).