scholarly journals An Improved Equilibrium Optimizer with Application in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Path Planning

Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (5) ◽  
pp. 1814
Author(s):  
An-Di Tang ◽  
Tong Han ◽  
Huan Zhou ◽  
Lei Xie

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) path planning problem is a type of complex multi-constraint optimization problem that requires a reasonable mathematical model and an efficient path planning algorithm. In this paper, the fitness function including fuel consumption cost, altitude cost, and threat cost is established. There are also four set constraints including maximum flight distance, minimum flight altitude, maximum turn angle, and maximum climb angle. The constrained optimization problem is transformed into an unconstrained optimization problem by using the penalty function introduced. To solve the model, a multiple population hybrid equilibrium optimizer (MHEO) is proposed. Firstly, the population is divided into three subpopulations based on fitness and different strategies are executed separately. Secondly, a Gaussian distribution estimation strategy is introduced to enhance the performance of MHEO by using the dominant information of the populations to guide the population evolution. The equilibrium pool is adjusted to enhance population diversity. Furthermore, the Lévy flight strategy and the inferior solution shift strategy are used to help the algorithm get rid of stagnation. The CEC2017 test suite was used to evaluate the performance of MHEO, and the results show that MHEO has a faster convergence speed and better convergence accuracy compared to the comparison algorithms. The path planning simulation experiments show that MHEO can steadily and efficiently plan flight paths that satisfy the constraints, proving the superiority of the MHEO algorithm while verifying the feasibility of the path planning model.

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Yongqiang Qi ◽  
Shuai Li ◽  
Yi Ke

In this paper, a three-dimensional path planning problem of an unmanned aerial vehicle under constant thrust is studied based on the artificial fluid method. The effect of obstacles on the original fluid field is quantified by the perturbation matrix, the streamlines can be regarded as the planned path for the unmanned aerial vehicle, and the tangential vector and the disturbance matrix of the artificial fluid method are improved. In particular, this paper addresses a novel algorithm of constant thrust fitting which is proposed through the impulse compensation, and then the constant thrust switching control scheme based on the isochronous interpolation method is given. It is proved that the planned path can avoid all obstacles smoothly and swiftly and reach the destination eventually. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of this method.


Author(s):  
Giang Thi - Huong Dang ◽  
Quang - Huy Vuong ◽  
Minh Hoang Ha ◽  
Minh - Trien Pham

Path planning for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) targets at generating an optimal global path to the target, avoiding collisions and optimizing the given cost function under constraints. In this paper, the path planning problem for UAV in pre-known 3D environment is presented. Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) was proved the efficiency for various problems. PSO has high convergence speed yet with its major drawback of premature convergence when solving large-scale optimization problems. In this paper, the improved PSO with adaptive mutation to overcome its drawback in order to applied PSO the UAV path planning in real 3D environment which composed of mountains and constraints. The effectiveness of the proposed PSO algorithm is compared to Genetic Algorithm, standard PSO and other improved PSO using 3D map of Daklak, Dakrong and Langco Beach. The results have shown the potential for applying proposed algorithm in optimizing the 3D UAV path planning. Keywords: UAV, Path planning, PSO, Optimization.


2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. 1470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abdul Majeed ◽  
Sungchang Lee

This paper presents a new coverage flight path planning algorithm that finds collision-free, minimum length and flyable paths for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) navigation in three-dimensional (3D) urban environments with fixed obstacles for coverage missions. The proposed algorithm significantly reduces computational time, number of turns, and path overlapping while finding a path that passes over all reachable points of an area or volume of interest by using sensor footprints’ sweeps fitting and a sparse waypoint graph in the pathfinding process. We devise a novel footprints’ sweep fitting method considering UAV sensor footprint as coverage unit in the free spaces to achieve maximal coverage with fewer and longer footprints’ sweeps. After footprints’ sweeps fitting, the proposed algorithm determines the visiting sequence of footprints’ sweeps by formulating it as travelling salesman problem (TSP), and ant colony optimization (ACO) algorithm is employed to solve the TSP. Furthermore, we generate a sparse waypoint graph by connecting footprints’ sweeps’ endpoints to obtain a complete coverage flight path. The simulation results obtained from various scenarios fortify the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm and verify the aforementioned claims.


Author(s):  
Fei Yan ◽  
Xiaoping Zhu ◽  
Zhou Zhou ◽  
Yang Tang

The coupled task allocation and path planning problem for heterogeneous multiple unmanned aerial vehicles performing a search and attack mission involving obstacles and no-fly zones are addressed. The importance of the target is measured using a time-dependent value. A task allocation algorithm is proposed to obtain the maximum system utility. In the system utility function, the reward of the target, path lengths of unmanned aerial vehicles, and number of unmanned aerial vehicles to perform a simultaneous attack are considered. The path length of the unmanned aerial vehicles based on the Pythagorean hodograph curve is calculated, and it serves as the input for the task allocation problem. A resource management method for unmanned aerial vehicles is used, so that the resource consumption of the unmanned aerial vehicles can be balanced. To satisfy the requirement of simultaneous attacks and the unmanned aerial vehicle kinematic constraints in an environment involving obstacles and no-fly zones, a distributed cooperative particle swarm optimization algorithm is developed to generate flyable and safe Pythagorean hodograph curve trajectories for unmanned aerial vehicles to achieve simultaneous arrival. Monte Carlo simulations are conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed task allocation and path planning method.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (7) ◽  
pp. 1968
Author(s):  
Hailong Huang ◽  
Andrey V. Savkin

This paper focuses on the application using a solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) to inspect mountain sites for the purpose of safety and rescue. An inspection path planning problem is formulated, which looks for the path for an UAV to visit a set of sites where people may appear while avoiding collisions with mountains and maintaining positive residual energy. A rapidly exploring random tree (RRT)-based planning method is proposed. This method firstly finds a feasible path that satisfies the residual energy requirement and then shortens the path if there is some abundant residual energy at the end. Computer simulations are conducted to demonstrate the performance of the proposed method.


Author(s):  
Arturo De Marinis ◽  
Felice Iavernaro ◽  
Francesca Mazzia

AbstractIn this article, we present a new strategy to determine an unmanned aerial vehicle trajectory that minimizes its flight time in presence of avoidance areas and obstacles. The method combines classical results from optimal control theory, i.e. the Euler-Lagrange Theorem and the Pontryagin Minimum Principle, with a continuation technique that dynamically adapts the solution curve to the presence of obstacles. We initially consider the two-dimensional path planning problem and then move to the three-dimensional one, and include numerical illustrations for both cases to show the efficiency of our approach.


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