Sparse-memory graph search
Rong Zhou, Eric A. Hansen · 2003
We describe a framework for reducing the space complexity of graph search algorithms such as A* that use Open and Closed lists to keep track of the frontier and interior nodes of the search space. We propose a sparse representation of the Closed list in which only a fraction of already expanded nodes need to be stored to perform the two functions of the Closed List – preventing duplicate search effort and allowing solution extraction. Our proposal is related to earlier work on search algorithms that do not use a Closed list at all [Korf and Zhang, 2000]. However, the approach we describe has several advantages that make it effective for a wider variety of problems. 1