A spherical vector-based adaptive evolutionary particle swarm optimization for UAV path planning under threat conditions

Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) path planning is a constrained multi-objective optimization problem. With the increasing scale of UAV applications, finding an efficient and safe path in complex real-world environments is crucial. However, existing particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms struggle with these problems as they fail to consider UAV dynamics, resulting in many infeasible solutions and poor convergence to optimal solutions. To address these challenges, we propose a spherical vector-based adaptive evolutionary particle swarm optimization (SAEPSO) algorithm. This algorithm, based on spherical vectors, directly incorporates UAV dynamic constraints and introduces improved tent map and reverse learning to enhance the diversity and distribution of initial solutions. Additionally, dynamic nonlinear and adaptive factors are integrated to balance exploration and exploitation capabilities. To avoid local optima in highly complex environments, we propose an adaptive acceleration strategy for poor particles, and an evolutionary programming strategy is incorporated to further improve the optimization capability. Finally, we conducted comparative studies and in six benchmark scenarios with varying threat levels, and the results demonstrated that the proposed algorithm outperforms others in the initial solution effectiveness, the final solution accuracy, convergence stability, and scalability.