An Accurate UAV 3-D Path Planning Method for Disaster Emergency Response Based on an Improved Multiobjective Swarm Intelligence Algorithm.

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been widely applied in civilian and military applications due to their high autonomy and strong adaptability. Although UAVs can achieve effective cost reduction and flexibility enhancement in the development of large-scale systems, they result in a serious path planning and task allocation problem. Coverage path planning, which tries to seek flight paths to cover all of regions of interest, is one of the key technologies in achieving autonomous driving of UAVs and difficult to obtain optimal solutions because of its NP-Hard computational complexity. In this paper, we study the coverage path planning problem of autonomous heterogeneous UAVs on a bounded number of regions. First, with models of separated regions and heterogeneous UAVs, we propose an exact formulation based on mixed integer linear programming to fully search the solution space and produce optimal flight paths for autonomous UAVs. Then, inspired from density-based clustering methods, we design an original clustering-based algorithm to classify regions into clusters and obtain approximate optimal point-to-point paths for UAVs such that coverage tasks would be carried out correctly and efficiently. Experiments with randomly generated regions are conducted to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed approach.

In a surveillance mission, the task of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) path planning can in some cases be addressed using Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) simulation. If sufficient a priori information about the target and the environment is available an assessment of the future state of the target is obtained by the SMC simulation. This assessment is used in a set of "what-if" simulations to compare different alternative UAV paths. In a static environment this simulation can be conducted prior to the mission. However, if the environment is dynamic, it is required to run the "what-if" simulations on-line i.e. in real-time. In this paper the details of this on-line simulation approach in UAV path planning is studied and its performance is compared with two other methods: an off-line simulationaided path planning and an exhaustive search method. The conducted simulations indicate that the on-line simulation has generally a higher performance compared with the two other methods.

Path smoothing is an important part of UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) path planning, because the smoothness of the planned path is related to the flight safety and stability of UAVs. In existing smooth UAV path planning methods, different characteristics of a path curve are not considered comprehensively, and the optimization functions established based on the arc length or curvature of the path curve are complex, resulting in low efficiency and quality of path smoothing. To balance the arc length and smoothness of UAV paths, this paper proposes to use energy-minimizing Bézier curves based on composite energy for smooth UAV path planning. In order to simplify the calculation, a kind of approximate stretching energy and bending energy are used to control the arc length and smoothness, respectively, of the path, by which the optimal path can be directly obtained by solving a linear system. Experimental validation in multiple scenarios demonstrates the methodology’s effectiveness and real-time computational viability, where the planned paths by this method have the characteristics of curvature continuity, good smoothness, and short arc length. What is more, in many cases, compared to path smoothing methods based solely on bending energy optimization, the proposed method can generate paths with a smaller maximum curvature, which is more conducive to the safe and stable flight of UAVs. Furthermore, the design of collision-free smooth path for UAVs based on the piecewise energy-minimizing Bézier curve is studied. The new method is simple and efficient, which can help to improve UAV path planning efficiency and thus improve UAV reaction speed and obstacle avoidance ability.

Aiming at the problem of fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) path planning, considering the actual flight conditions and flight performance of UAV, a multi-constraint UAV path planning model is constructed with the minimum flight range and correction times as the objective function. The improved A* algorithm is used to solve the problem: in order to adapt to the model, the objective function of the model is used as the evaluation function; in order to speed up the search efficiency, the branch and bound method is used for iterative search. The simulation results show that: the model can achieve bi-objective optimization, and it is reasonable. Compared with the traditional A* algorithm, the improved algorithm can better balance the optimization flight range and correction times, and save the algorithm planning time, and effectively complete the fast path planning of fixed-wing UAV with multiple constraints.KeywordsFixed-wing UAVPath planningPositioning errorImproved A* algorithmBranch and bound method

Due to the high maneuverability and strong adaptability, autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are of high interest to many civilian and military organizations around the world. Automatic path planning which autonomously finds a good enough path that covers the whole area of interest, is an essential aspect of UAV autonomy. In this study, we focus on the automatic path planning of heterogeneous UAVs with different flight and scan capabilities, and try to present an efficient algorithm to produce appropriate paths for UAVs. First, models of heterogeneous UAVs are built, and the automatic path planning is abstracted as a multi-constraint optimization problem and solved by a linear programming formulation. Then, inspired by the density-based clustering analysis and symbiotic interaction behaviours of organisms, an adaptive clustering-based algorithm with a symbiotic organisms search-based optimization strategy is proposed to efficiently settle the path planning problem and generate feasible paths for heterogeneous UAVs with a view to minimizing the time consumption of the search tasks. Experiments on randomly generated regions are conducted to evaluate the performance of the proposed approach in terms of task completion time, execution time and deviation ratio.

In a surveillance mission, the task of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) path planning can in some cases be addressed using Sequential Monte Carlo (SMC) simulation. If sufficient a priori information about the target and the environment is available an assessment of the future state of the target is obtained by the SMC simulation. This assessment is used in a set of "what-if" simulations to compare different alternative UAV paths. In a static environment this simulation can be conducted prior to the mission. However, if the environment is dynamic, it is required to run the "what-if" simulations on-line i.e. in real-time. In this paper the details of this on-line simulation approach in UAV path planning is studied and its performance is compared with two other methods: an off-line simulationaided path planning and an exhaustive search method. The conducted simulations indicate that the on-line simulation has generally a higher performance compared with the two other methods.

The Black-winged Kite Optimization Algorithm (BKA) is likely to experience a sluggish convergence rate when confronted with the optimization of complex multimodal functions. The fundamental algorithm has a tendency to get stuck in local optima, thus rendering it arduous to identify the global optimal solution. When dealing with large-scale data or high-dimensional optimization challenges, the BKA algorithm entails significant computational expenses, which might lead to excessive memory usage or prolonged running durations. In order to enhance the BKA and tackle these problems, a revised Black-winged Kite Optimization Algorithm (TGBKA) that incorporates the Tent chaos mapping and Gaussian mutation strategies is put forward. The algorithm is simulated and analyzed alongside other swarm intelligence algorithms by utilizing the CEC2017 test function set. The optimization outcomes of the test functions and the function convergence curves indicate that the TGBKA demonstrates superior optimization precision, a quicker convergence speed, as well as robust anti-interference and environmental adaptability. It is also contrasted with numerous similar algorithms via simulation experiments in various scene models for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) path planning. In comparison to other algorithms, the TGBKA produces a shorter flight route, a higher convergence speed, and stronger adaptability to complex environments. It is capable of efficiently addressing UAV path planning issues and improving the UAV's path planning abilities.

Cooperative path planning optimization for multiple UAVs with communication constraints

One of the most fundamental element of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) path planning is the assurance that the path planned avoids any terrain collision. The task to “evaluate how much a UAV path is in collision with the terrain” is particularly crucial for path planners that are optimizing random generated paths. This terrain collision evaluation task can be computationally demanding and its computation time depends on the environment representation used. This paper presents a Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGA) based design of a UAV terrain collision evaluator that evaluates in parallel segments of the path in real-time. Its worst case computation time has a fixed upper bounded, based on the size of the map. For a 500×500 grid map, this upper bound is 1.9 μs, which is a promising result for future UAV real-time path planners.

Path planning is the key for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to perform tasks efficiently, which needs to quickly obtain the optimal path in the complex environment. To solve the path planning problem in the complex urban environment, an improved artificial bee colony algorithm based on multi-strategy synthesis (IABC) is proposed to generate the appropriate path for the UAV. The IABC is based on the hybrid mechanism of chaotic mapping and Pareto principle to initialize the population, so as to fully search the solution space and provide an approximate optimal flight path for UAV. Meanwhile, in order to balance exploration and development, two new search equations are designed to generate candidate solutions, which provide more superior flight paths for UAVs. In addition, tangent random evolution mechanism is added to enhance the strategy of updating the algorithm offspring, maximize the quality of flight path generation, and effectively solve the path planning problem. Aiming at the complex urban environment and the multi-constraint optimization problem of UAV flight, the IABC is combined with cubic spline interpolation to generate a smooth path to meet the UAV flight maneuver characteristics. The improved algorithm proposed in this paper has been compared with Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Artificial Bee Colony (ABC), Search Artificial Bee Colony (SABC) and Gbest Artificial Bee Colony (GABC). The algorithm proposed in this paper has good feasibility and effectiveness in solving the UAV path planning problem.

A novel phase angle-encoded fruit fly optimization algorithm with mutation adaptation mechanism applied to UAV path planning

This paper utilises a class of mesh adaptive direct search method to design an optimal path for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). To this end, a multi-objective optimisation problem is considered for simultaneous optimisation of some conflicting objective functions under different kinds of vehicle and mission constraints. Since the path planning for UAVs in a large geographical area is a typical large-scale optimisation problem, to avoid memory and computational intensive issues, different techniques such as constructing an adaptive mesh, polling, and barrier approach are incorporated in the proposed algorithm. The proposed method is tested under different scenarios and various realistic terrain environments. The results show effectiveness of the proposed method in guiding UAVs to the final destination by providing near-optimal feasible paths quickly and effectively. The results will also be compared with the genetic algorithm approach, which has been recently used for path planning.

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), particularly quadrotor UAVs, are widely recognized for their cost-effectiveness, operational flexibility, and vertical takeoff and landing capabilities, making them ideal for specific airspace operations and emergency response scenarios. Efficient path planning is critical for UAV mission execution, requiring optimal flight paths that ensure safe obstacle avoidance while addressing challenges such as dynamic environments, energy optimization, and multi-parameter management. Despite advancements in path planning techniques, including the artificial potential field (APF) method and reinforcement learning (RL), issues like local optima and parameter tuning complexity persist, limiting adaptability in dynamic environments. This study proposes a hybrid approach integrating Markov Decision Process (MDP) theory with an improved artificial potential field (IAPF) method to enhance quadrotor UAV path planning in three-dimensional environments. By generating global waypoints based on known obstacle, the method minimizes flight path deviations and improves navigation performance. The results demonstrate significant advancements in trajectory accuracy and adaptability, offering a robust solution for UAV path optimization in complex scenarios.

This study explores the application of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) path planning within a simulated three-dimensional environment. UAVs, increasingly prevalent across various sectors, demand efficient navigation solutions that account for dynamic and unpredictable elements. Traditional pathfinding algorithms often fall short in complex scenarios, hence the shift towards PSO, a bio-inspired algorithm recognized for its adaptability and robustness. We developed a Python-based framework to simulate the UAV path planning scenario. The PSO algorithm was tasked to navigate a UAV from a starting point to a predetermined destination while avoiding spherical obstacles. The environment was set within a 3D grid with a series of waypoints, marking the UAV's trajectory, generated by the PSO to ensure obstacle avoidance and path optimization. The PSO parameters were meticulously tuned to balance the exploration and exploitation of the search space, with an emphasis on computational efficiency. A cost function penalizing proximity to obstacles guided the PSO in real-time decision-making, resulting in a collision-free and optimized path. The UAV's trajectory was visualized in both 2D and 3D perspectives, with the analysis focusing on the path's smoothness, length, and adherence to spatial constraints. The results affirm the PSO's effectiveness in UAV path planning, successfully avoiding obstacles and minimizing path length. The findings highlight PSO's potential for practical UAV applications, emphasizing the importance of parameter optimization. This research contributes to the advancement of autonomous UAV navigation, indicating PSO as a viable solution for real-world path planning challenges.

Two Approaches for Path Planning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles with Avoidance Zones