Why are these topics important?

• Search and knowledge representation form the basis for many AI techniques.
• We have studied search in some detail (last year).
• We will study Knowledge representation next.

Here are a few pointers as to where specific search methods are used in this course.

Knowledge Representation

-- Best first search (A*), Constraint satisfaction and means-ends analysis searches used in Rule based and knowledge.

Uncertain reasoning

-- Depth first, breadth first and constraint satisfaction methods used.

Distributed reasoning

-- Best first search (A*) and Constraint satisfaction.

Planning

-- Best first search (A*), AO*, Constraint satisfaction and means-ends analysis.

Understanding

-- Constraint satisfaction.

Learning

-- Constraint satisfaction, Means-ends analysis.

Common sense

-- Constraint satisfaction.

Vision

-- depth first, breadth first, heuristics, simulated annealing, constraint satisfaction are all used extensively.

Robotics

-- Constraint satisfaction and means-ends analysis used in planning robot paths.