hill climbing

1 definition found

hill climbing - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  hill climbing
  
     <algorithm> A graph search algorithm where the current
     path is extended with a successor node which is closer to the
     solution than the end of the current path.
  
     In simple hill climbing, the first closer node is chosen
     whereas in steepest ascent hill climbing all successors are
     compared and the closest to the solution is chosen.  Both
     forms fail if there is no closer node.  This may happen if
     there are local maxima in the search space which are not
     solutions.  Steepest ascent hill climbing is similar to best first search
      but the latter tries all possible extensions of
     the current path in order whereas steepest ascent only tries
     one.
  
     (1995-12-09)