A novel path planning algorithm based on plant growth mechanism

A Photosensitivity-Enhanced Plant Growth Algorithm for UAV Path Planning

With the rise and development of autonomy and intelligence technologies, UAVs will have increasingly significant applications in the future. It is very important to solve the problem of low-altitude penetration of UAVs to protect national territorial security. Based on an S-57 electronic chart file, the land, island, and threat information for an actual combat environment is parsed, extracted, and rasterized to construct a marine combat environment for UAV flight simulation. To address the problem of path planning for low-altitude penetration in complex environments, a photosensitivity-enhanced plant growth algorithm (PEPG) is proposed. Based on the plant growth path planning algorithm (PGPP), the proposed algorithm improves upon the light intensity preprocessing and light intensity calculation methods. Moreover, the kinematic constraints of the UAV, such as the turning angle, are also considered. The planned path that meets the safety flight requirements of the UAV is smoother than that of the original algorithm, and the length is reduced by at least 8.2%. Finally, simulation tests are carried out with three common path planning algorithms, namely, A*, RRT, and GA. The results show that the PEPG algorithm is superior to the other three algorithms in terms of the path length and path quality, and the feasibility and safety of the path are verified via the autonomous tracking flight of a UAV.

Recent Developments in Equilibrium Optimizer Algorithm: Its Variants and Applications

There have been many algorithms created and introduced in the literature inspired by various events observable in nature, such as evolutionary phenomena, the actions of social creatures or agents, broad principles based on physical processes, the nature of chemical reactions, human behavior, superiority, and intelligence, intelligent behavior of plants, numerical techniques and mathematics programming procedure and its orientation. Nature-inspired metaheuristic algorithms have dominated the scientific literature and have become a widely used computing paradigm over the past two decades. Equilibrium Optimizer, popularly known as EO, is a population-based, nature-inspired meta-heuristics that belongs to the class of Physics based optimization algorithms, enthused by dynamic source and sink models with a physics foundation that are used to make educated guesses about equilibrium states. EO has achieved massive recognition, and there are quite a few changes made to existing EOs. This article gives a thorough review of EO and its variations. We started with 175 research articles published by several major publishers. Additionally, we discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the algorithms to help researchers find the variant that best suits their needs. The core optimization problems from numerous application areas using EO are also covered in the study, including image classification, scheduling problems, and many others. Lastly, this work recommends a few potential areas for EO research in the future.

Bio-Inspired Optimization-Based Path Planning Algorithms in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Survey

Advancements in electronics and software have enabled the rapid development of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and UAV-assisted applications. Although the mobility of UAVs allows for flexible deployment of networks, it introduces challenges regarding throughput, delay, cost, and energy. Therefore, path planning is an important aspect of UAV communications. Bio-inspired algorithms rely on the inspiration and principles of the biological evolution of nature to achieve robust survival techniques. However, the issues have many nonlinear constraints, which pose a number of problems such as time restrictions and high dimensionality. Recent trends tend to employ bio-inspired optimization algorithms, which are a potential method for handling difficult optimization problems, to address the issues associated with standard optimization algorithms. Focusing on these points, we investigate various bio-inspired algorithms for UAV path planning over the past decade. To the best of our knowledge, no survey on existing bio-inspired algorithms for UAV path planning has been reported in the literature. In this study, we investigate the prevailing bio-inspired algorithms extensively from the perspective of key features, working principles, advantages, and limitations. Subsequently, path planning algorithms are compared with each other in terms of their major features, characteristics, and performance factors. Furthermore, the challenges and future research trends in UAV path planning are summarized and discussed.

A novel metaheuristic algorithm inspired by COVID-19 for real-parameter optimization

In this modern world, we are encountered with numerous complex and emerging problems. The metaheuristic optimization science plays a key role in many fields from medicine to engineering, design, etc. Metaheuristic algorithms inspired by nature are among the most effective and fastest optimization methods utilized to optimize different objective functions to minimize or maximize one or more specific objectives. The use of metaheuristic algorithms and their modified versions is expanding every day. However, due to the abundance and complexity of various problems in the real world, it is always necessary to select the most proper metaheuristic method; hence, there is a strong need to create new algorithms to achieve our desired goal. In this paper, a new and powerful metaheuristic algorithm, called the coronavirus metamorphosis optimization algorithm (CMOA), is proposed based on metabolism and transformation under various conditions. The proposed CMOA algorithm has been tested and implemented on the comprehensive and complex CEC2014 benchmark functions, which are functions based on real-world problems. The results of the experiments in a comparative study under the same conditions show that the CMOA is superior to the newly-developed metaheuristic algorithms including AIDO, ITGO, RFOA, SCA, CSA, CS, SOS, GWO, WOA, MFO, PSO, Jaya, CMA-ES, GSA, RW-GWO, mTLBO, MG-SCA, TOGPEAe, m-SCA, EEO and OB-L-EO, indicating the effectiveness and robustness of the CMOA algorithm as a powerful algorithm. As it was observed from the results, the CMOA provides more suitable and optimized solutions than its competitors for the problems studied. The CMOA preserves the diversity of the population and prevents trapping in local optima. The CMOA is also applied to three engineering problems including optimal design of a welded beam, a three-bar truss and a pressure vessel, showing its high potential in solving such practical problems and effectiveness in finding global optima. According to the obtained results, the CMOA is superior to its counterparts in terms of providing a more acceptable solution. Several statistical indicators are also tested using the CMOA, which demonstrates its efficiency compared to the rest of the methods. This is also highlighted that the CMOA is a stable and reliable method when employed for expert systems.

An Inclusive Survey on Marine Predators Algorithm: Variants and Applications

Marine Predators Algorithm (MPA) is the existing population-based meta-heuristic algorithms that falls under the category of Nature-Inspired Optimization Algorithm (NIOA) enthused by the foraging actions of the marine predators that principally pursues Levy or Brownian approach as its foraging strategy. Furthermore, it employs the optimal encounter rate stratagem involving both the predator as well as prey. Since its introduction by Faramarzi in the year 2020, MPA has gained enormous popularity and has been employed in numerous application areas ranging from Mathematical and Engineering Optimization problems to Fog Computing to Image Processing to Photovoltaic System to Wind-Solar Generation System for resolving continuous optimization problems. Such huge interest from the research fraternity or the massive recognition of MPA is due to several factors such as its simplicity, ease of application, realistic execution time, superior convergence acceleration rate, soaring effectiveness, its ability to unravel continuous, multi-objective and binary problems when compared with other renowned optimization algorithms existing in the literature. This paper offers a detailed summary of the Marine Predators Algorithm (MPA) and its variants. Furthermore, the applications of MPA in a number of spheres such as Image processing, classification, electrical power system, Photovoltaic models, structural damage detection, distribution networks, engineering applications, Task Scheduling, optimization problems etc., are illustrated. To conclude, the paper highlights and thereby advocates few of the potential future research directions for MPA.

Path planning for mobile robot using an enhanced ant colony optimization and path geometric optimization

Path planning of mobile robots in complex environments is the most challenging research. A hybrid approach combining the enhanced ant colony system with the local optimization algorithm based on path geometric features, called EACSPGO, has been presented in this study for mobile robot path planning. Firstly, the simplified model of pheromone diffusion, the pheromone initialization strategy of unequal allocation, and the adaptive pheromone update mechanism have been simultaneously introduced to enhance the classical ant colony algorithm, thus providing a significant improvement in the computation efficiency and the quality of the solutions. A local optimization method based on path geometric features has been designed to further optimize the initial path and achieve a good convergence rate. Finally, the performance and advantages of the proposed approach have been verified by a series of tests in the mobile robot path planning. The simulation results demonstrate that the presented EACSPGO approach provides better solutions, adaptability, stability, and faster convergence rate compared to the other tested optimization algorithms.