Multiple paths planning for UAVs using particle swarm optimization with sequential niche technique

Multiple paths planning of unmanned aerial vehicles is a typical multimodal optimization problem. This paper presents a particle swarm optimization algorithm combined with sequential niche technique to solve this problem. The sequential niche technique adjusts the objective function value of the surrounding area of minimum to ensure the diversity of multiple optimizations. The surrounding area of the minimum found by particle swarm optimization in the search domain is described as niche. The objective function value in the niche is adaptively modified to reject the particles from the niche in subsequent iterations. Besides, a novel method to determine the niche radius is proposed for multiple paths planning. Furthermore, the distance calculation method between two paths is improved to better distinguish different paths. Finally, the simulation results show that the proposed method can effectively solve multiple paths planning problem.