Correction to "A Formal Basis for the Heuristic Determination of Minimum Cost Paths"

  • Authors:
  • Peter E. Hart;Nils J. Nilsson;Bertram Raphael

  • Affiliations:
  • Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, California;Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, California;Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, California

  • Venue:
  • ACM SIGART Bulletin
  • Year:
  • 1972

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Abstract

Our paper on the use of heuristic information in graph searching defined a path-finding algorithm, A*, and proved that it had two important properties. In the notation of the paper, we proved that if the heuristic function ñ (n) is a lower bound on the true minimal cost from node n to a goal node, then A* is admissible; i.e., it would find a minimal cost path if any path to a goal node existed. Further, we proved that if the heuristic function also satisfied something called the consistency assumption, then A* was optimal; i.e., it expanded no more nodes than any other admissible algorithm A no more informed than A*. These results were summarized in a book by one of us.