A Cooperative Path Planning and Smoothing Algorithm for UAVs in Three Dimensional Environment

In three dimensional environments feasible paths for UAVs should be smooth, flyable and safe. To solve the problem of multi-UAVs cooperative path planning with kinds of constraints, a multi-objective optimization approach based on differential evolution is proposed, which uses a group of UAV paths as evolution individuals. In this paper, we adopt a novel combined strategy to enhance the efficiency of difference. To fit UAV constraints and cooperative constraints, a cooperative fitness function is given to measure the pare to optimal solution. And then the control vertexes of a B-spline curve are calculated reversely to get a group of flyable smoothing paths for UAVs. The simulation results show that the proposed approach effectively improves the cooperative accuracy and works well in smoothing paths for UAVs.