A High-Efficiency Two-Layer Path Planning Method for UAVs in Vast Airspace

Facing the challenges of low efficiency and poor quality in UAV 3D path planning within large-scale airspace complex environments, this paper introduces a divide-and-conquer approach, proposing a dual-layer path planning method based on multi-source information fusion. The method decomposes traditional path planning into two steps: heading planning and trajectory planning, ensuring both planning efficiency and path quality. This method segregates the solution process into two distinct stages: heading planning and path planning, thereby ensuring the planning of both efficiency and path quality. Firstly, the path planning phase is formulated as a multi-objective optimization problem, taking into account the environmental constraints of the UAV mission and path safety. A heading planning layer is then designed, which incorporates multiple information sources and represents the multidimensional airspace environmental data through an adaptive 2D probabilistic map via information fusion. An improved ant colony algorithm is proposed to efficiently generate high-quality sets of headings, facilitating the preliminary heading planning for UAVs. Then, the three-dimensional environment of the heading regions is extracted, and an improved Dung Beetle algorithm with multiple strategies is proposed to optimize the three-dimensional path in the secondary layer accurately. The efficacy and quality of the proposed path planning methodology are substantiated through comprehensive simulation analysis.