UAV Path Planning in Dynamical Environment: A Novel ICACO-IDWA Algorithm

In this paper, a novel UAV path planning algorithm based on improved cellular ant colony algorithm and dynamic window algorithm (ICACO-IDWA) is proposed to solve the problem of dynamically changing threat during actual flight. The main innovations of this paper are as follows. (a) The hexagon grid method is proposed to model the UAV flight space, which solves the problem of inconsistent simulation time step. (b) A novel ICACO-IDWA algorithm is proposed. In the first stage, the optimal path is obtained by the improved cellular ant colony algorithm (ICACO). In the second stage, the improved dynamic window algorithm (IDWA) is used to optimize the optimal path considering dynamic threat. Through the algorithm, the UAV path planning with dynamic threat change is realized. Finally, simulation results verify the effectiveness of the proposed model and algorithm.