From the course: Python Data Structures and Algorithms
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Understand the A* search algorithm - Python Tutorial
From the course: Python Data Structures and Algorithms
Understand the A* search algorithm
- Now we come to what, in some ways, is the culmination of everything we have studied so far, the A-star algorithm. The A-star search algorithm is a powerful, and widely used, algorithm for calculating shortest paths. Here are some applications. So A-star search is used very often in traffic navigational systems, including GPS. It's used a lot in social network analysis, natural language processing, machine learning. It's used for finding solutions to puzzles, and also real world situations, which can be modeled as puzzles. It's used, for example, in algorithmic training, also in robotics, and it has many applications in video games. And beyond this list, there are also many other applications. It's a very widespread and powerful algorithm. What distinguishes the A-star algorithm from the previous pathfinding algorithms we have studied is the use of a heuristic to determine the likely best choice for each step of the algorithm. A heuristic is often informally defined as a rule of…
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