Three-dimensional multi-constraint route planning of unmanned aerial vehicle low-altitude penetration based on coevolutionary multi-agent genetic algorithm

To address the issue of premature convergence and slow convergence rate in three-dimensional (3D) route planning of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) low-altitude penetration, a novel route planning method was proposed. First and foremost, a coevolutionary multi-agent genetic algorithm (CE-MAGA) was formed by introducing coevolutionary mechanism to multi-agent genetic algorithm (MAGA), an efficient global optimization algorithm. A dynamic route representation form was also adopted to improve the flight route accuracy. Moreover, an efficient constraint handling method was used to simplify the treatment of multi-constraint and reduce the time-cost of planning computation. Simulation and corresponding analysis show that the planning results of CE-MAGA have better performance on terrain following, terrain avoidance, threat avoidance (TF/TA²) and lower route costs than other existing algorithms. In addition, feasible flight routes can be acquired within 2 s, and the convergence rate of the whole evolutionary process is very fast.