3-D Path Planning for UAV Based on Chaos Particle Swarm Optimization

Abstract

An improved chaos particle swarm optimization (CPSO) algorithm is proposed on path planning for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to overcome the inadequacy of particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm, which falls into local optimum easily and converges slowly in process with poor precision. Through the in-depth analysis of PSO algorithm, the chaos optimization (CO) algorithm principle is introduced into it based on the traditional update operations on the particles’ velocity and position; as a result, the diversity of particles is increased, the suboptimal search on path planning is avoided and the quickness accompanied with accuracy of convergence is improved. Combined with digital map for modeling the UAV’s flight environment, the 3-D path planning is achieved. As the simulation results demonstrated, this hybrid algorithm is superior to the traditional PSO algorithm on path searching, especially in the 3-D environment.