In the current era of intelligent technologies,comprehensive and precise regional coverage path planning is critical for tasks such as environmental monitoring,emergency rescue,and agricultural plant protection.Owing ...In the current era of intelligent technologies,comprehensive and precise regional coverage path planning is critical for tasks such as environmental monitoring,emergency rescue,and agricultural plant protection.Owing to their exceptional flexibility and rapid deployment capabilities,unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)have emerged as the ideal platforms for accomplishing these tasks.This study proposes a swarm A^(*)-guided Deep Q-Network(SADQN)algorithm to address the coverage path planning(CPP)problem for UAV swarms in complex environments.Firstly,to overcome the dependency of traditional modeling methods on regular terrain environments,this study proposes an improved cellular decomposition method for map discretization.Simultaneously,a distributed UAV swarm system architecture is adopted,which,through the integration of multi-scale maps,addresses the issues of redundant operations and flight conflicts inmulti-UAV cooperative coverage.Secondly,the heuristic mechanism of the A^(*)algorithmis combinedwith full-coverage path planning,and this approach is incorporated at the initial stage ofDeep Q-Network(DQN)algorithm training to provide effective guidance in action selection,thereby accelerating convergence.Additionally,a prioritized experience replay mechanism is introduced to further enhance the coverage performance of the algorithm.To evaluate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm,simulation experiments were conducted in several irregular environments and compared with several popular algorithms.Simulation results show that the SADQNalgorithmoutperforms othermethods,achieving performance comparable to that of the baseline prior algorithm,with an average coverage efficiency exceeding 2.6 and fewer turning maneuvers.In addition,the algorithm demonstrates excellent generalization ability,enabling it to adapt to different environments.展开更多
Complex multi-area collaborative coverage path planning in dynamic environments poses a significant challenge for multi-fixed-wing UAVs(multi-UAV).This study establishes a comprehensive framework that incorporates UAV...Complex multi-area collaborative coverage path planning in dynamic environments poses a significant challenge for multi-fixed-wing UAVs(multi-UAV).This study establishes a comprehensive framework that incorporates UAV capabilities,terrain,complex areas,and mission dynamics.A novel dynamic collaborative path planning algorithm is introduced,designed to ensure complete coverage of designated areas.This algorithm meticulously optimizes the operation,entry,and transition paths for each UAV,while also establishing evaluation metrics to refine coverage sequences for each area.Additionally,a three-dimensional path is computed utilizing an altitude descent method,effectively integrating twodimensional coverage paths with altitude constraints.The efficacy of the proposed approach is validated through digital simulations and mixed-reality semi-physical experiments across a variety of dynamic scenarios,including both single-area and multi-area coverage by multi-UAV.Results show that the coverage paths generated by this method significantly reduce both computation time and path length,providing a reliable solution for dynamic multi-UAV mission planning in semi-physical environments.展开更多
Collaborative coverage path planning(CCPP) refers to obtaining the shortest paths passing over all places except obstacles in a certain area or space. A multi-unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) collaborative CCPP algorithm ...Collaborative coverage path planning(CCPP) refers to obtaining the shortest paths passing over all places except obstacles in a certain area or space. A multi-unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) collaborative CCPP algorithm is proposed for the urban rescue search or military search in outdoor environment.Due to flexible control of small UAVs, it can be considered that all UAVs fly at the same altitude, that is, they perform search tasks on a two-dimensional plane. Based on the agents’ motion characteristics and environmental information, a mathematical model of CCPP problem is established. The minimum time for UAVs to complete the CCPP is the objective function, and complete coverage constraint, no-fly constraint, collision avoidance constraint, and communication constraint are considered. Four motion strategies and two communication strategies are designed. Then a distributed CCPP algorithm is designed based on hybrid strategies. Simulation results compared with patternbased genetic algorithm(PBGA) and random search method show that the proposed method has stronger real-time performance and better scalability and can complete the complete CCPP task more efficiently and stably.展开更多
Safety patrol inspection in chemical industrial parks is a complex multi-objective task with multiple degrees of freedom.Traditional pointer instruments with advantages like high reliability and strong adaptability to...Safety patrol inspection in chemical industrial parks is a complex multi-objective task with multiple degrees of freedom.Traditional pointer instruments with advantages like high reliability and strong adaptability to harsh environment,are widely applied in such parks.However,they rely on manual readings which have problems like heavy patrol workload,high labor cost,high false positives/negatives and poor timeliness.To address the above problems,this study proposes a path planning method for robot patrol in chemical industrial parks,where a path optimization model based on improved iterated local search and random variable neighborhood descent(ILS-RVND)algorithm is established by integrating the actual requirements of patrol tasks in chemical industrial parks.Further,the effectiveness of the model and algorithm is verified by taking real park data as an example.The results show that compared with GA and ILS-RVND,the improved algorithm reduces quantification cost by about 24%and saves patrol time by about 36%.Apart from shortening the patrol time of robots,optimizing their patrol path and reducing their maintenance loss,the proposed algorithm also avoids the untimely patrol of robots and enhances the safety factor of equipment.展开更多
This paper aims to address the problem of multi-UAV cooperative search for multiple targets in a mountainous environment,considering the constraints of UAV dynamics and prior environmental information.Firstly,using th...This paper aims to address the problem of multi-UAV cooperative search for multiple targets in a mountainous environment,considering the constraints of UAV dynamics and prior environmental information.Firstly,using the target probability distribution map,two strategies of information fusion and information diffusion are employed to solve the problem of environmental information inconsistency caused by different UAVs searching different areas,thereby improving the coordination of UAV groups.Secondly,the task region is decomposed into several high-value sub-regions by using data clustering method.Based on this,a hierarchical search strategy is proposed,which allows precise or rough search in different probability areas by adjusting the altitude of the aircraft,thereby improving the search efficiency.Third,the Elite Dung Beetle Optimization Algorithm(EDBOA)is proposed based on bionics by accurately simulating the social behavior of dung beetles to plan paths that satisfy the UAV dynamics constraints and adapt to the mountainous terrain,where the mountain is considered as an obstacle to be avoided.Finally,the objective function for path optimization is formulated by considering factors such as coverage within the task region,smoothness of the search path,and path length.The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed schemes are verified by the simulation.展开更多
It is difficult to solve complete coverage path planning directly in the obstructed area. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method of complete coverage path planning with improved area division. Firstly, the bous...It is difficult to solve complete coverage path planning directly in the obstructed area. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method of complete coverage path planning with improved area division. Firstly, the boustrophedon cell decomposition method is used to partition the map into sub-regions. The complete coverage paths within each sub-region are obtained by the Boustrophedon back-and-forth motions, and the order of traversal of the sub-regions is then described as a generalised traveling salesman problem with pickup and delivery based on the relative positions of the vertices of each sub-region. An adaptive large neighbourhood algorithm is proposed to quickly obtain solution results in traversal order. The effectiveness of the improved algorithm on traversal cost reduction is verified in this paper through multiple sets of experiments. .展开更多
The environment modeling algorithm named rectangular decomposition, which is composed of cellular nodes and interleaving networks, is proposed. The principle of environment modeling is to divide the environment into i...The environment modeling algorithm named rectangular decomposition, which is composed of cellular nodes and interleaving networks, is proposed. The principle of environment modeling is to divide the environment into individual square sub-areas. Each sub-area is orientated by the central point of the sub-areas called a node. The rectangular map based on the square map can enlarge the square area side size to increase the coverage efficiency in the case of there being an adjacent obstacle. Based on this algorithm, a new coverage algorithm, which includes global path planning and local path planning, is introduced. In the global path planning, uncovered subspaces are found by using a special rule. A one-dimensional array P, which is used to obtain the searching priority of node in every direction, is defined as the search rule. The array P includes the condition of coverage towards the adjacent cells, the condition of connectivity and the priorities defined by the user in all eight directions. In the local path planning, every sub-area is covered by using template models according to the shape of the environment. The simulation experiments show that the coverage algorithm is simple, efficient and adapted for complex two- dimensional environments.展开更多
Using the traditional swarm intelligence algorithm to solve the cooperative path planning problem for multi-UAVs is easy to incur the problems of local optimization and a slow convergence rate.A cooperative path plann...Using the traditional swarm intelligence algorithm to solve the cooperative path planning problem for multi-UAVs is easy to incur the problems of local optimization and a slow convergence rate.A cooperative path planning method for multi-UAVs based on the improved sheep optimization is proposed to tackle these.Firstly,based on the three-dimensional planning space,a multi-UAV cooperative cost function model is established according to the path planning requirements,and an initial track set is constructed by combining multiple-population ideas.Then an improved sheep optimization is proposed and used to solve the path planning problem and obtain multiple cooperative paths.The simulation results show that the sheep optimization can meet the requirements of path planning and realize the cooperative path planning of multi-UAVs.Compared with grey wolf optimizer(GWO),improved gray wolf optimizer(IGWO),chaotic gray wolf optimizer(CGWO),differential evolution(DE)algorithm,and particle swam optimization(PSO),the convergence speed and search accuracy of the improved sheep optimization are significantly improved.展开更多
A new method for a cooperative multi-task allocation problem(CMTAP) is proposed in this paper,taking into account the multi-ship, multi-target, multi-task and multi-constraint characteristics in a multi-ship cooperati...A new method for a cooperative multi-task allocation problem(CMTAP) is proposed in this paper,taking into account the multi-ship, multi-target, multi-task and multi-constraint characteristics in a multi-ship cooperative driving(MCD) system. On the basis of the general CMTAP model, an MCD task assignment model is established. Furthermore, a genetic ant colony hybrid algorithm(GACHA) is proposed for this model using constraints, including timing constraints, multi-ship collaboration constraints and ship capacity constraints. This algorithm uses a genetic algorithm(GA) based on a task sequence, while the crossover and mutation operators are based on similar tasks. In order to reduce the dependence of the GA on the initial population, an ant colony algorithm(ACA) is used to produce the initial population. In order to meet the environmental constraints of ship navigation, the results of the task allocation and path planning are combined to generate an MCD task planning scheme. The results of a simulated experiment using simulated data show that the proposed method can make the assignment more optimized on the basis of satisfying the task assignment constraints and the ship navigation environment constraints. Moreover, the experimental results using real data also indicate that the proposed method can find the optimal solution rapidly, and thus improve the task allocation efficiency.展开更多
The overall performance of multi-robot collaborative systems is significantly affected by the multi-robot task allocation.To improve the effectiveness,robustness,and safety of multi-robot collaborative systems,a multi...The overall performance of multi-robot collaborative systems is significantly affected by the multi-robot task allocation.To improve the effectiveness,robustness,and safety of multi-robot collaborative systems,a multimodal multi-objective evolutionary algorithm based on deep reinforcement learning is proposed in this paper.The improved multimodal multi-objective evolutionary algorithm is used to solve multi-robot task allo-cation problems.Moreover,a deep reinforcement learning strategy is used in the last generation to provide a high-quality path for each assigned robot via an end-to-end manner.Comparisons with three popular multimodal multi-objective evolutionary algorithms on three different scenarios of multi-robot task allocation problems are carried out to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm.The experimental test results show that the proposed algorithm can generate sufficient equivalent schemes to improve the availability and robustness of multi-robot collaborative systems in uncertain environments,and also produce the best scheme to improve the overall task execution efficiency of multi-robot collaborative systems.展开更多
为了研究地面车辆与无人机在巡检过程中的最佳任务分配策略及路径规划问题,提出一种两阶段混合式启发算法——改进自适应大邻域搜索(improved adaptive large neighborhood search,IALNS)算法。第一阶段根据待巡检节点的不同需求等级及...为了研究地面车辆与无人机在巡检过程中的最佳任务分配策略及路径规划问题,提出一种两阶段混合式启发算法——改进自适应大邻域搜索(improved adaptive large neighborhood search,IALNS)算法。第一阶段根据待巡检节点的不同需求等级及距离等因素,利用聚类算法对目标节点进行划分;第二阶段采用一种混合式启发算法解决路线调度问题,增加6种新的局部优化算子,引入节点重分配策略,经过迭代得到成本最小的车辆与无人机协同混合路线。对所提算法解和其他算法解进行测试和比较分析,试验数据表明,IALNS算法在解决车辆与无人机协同巡检问题时具有显著优势。展开更多
文摘In the current era of intelligent technologies,comprehensive and precise regional coverage path planning is critical for tasks such as environmental monitoring,emergency rescue,and agricultural plant protection.Owing to their exceptional flexibility and rapid deployment capabilities,unmanned aerial vehicles(UAVs)have emerged as the ideal platforms for accomplishing these tasks.This study proposes a swarm A^(*)-guided Deep Q-Network(SADQN)algorithm to address the coverage path planning(CPP)problem for UAV swarms in complex environments.Firstly,to overcome the dependency of traditional modeling methods on regular terrain environments,this study proposes an improved cellular decomposition method for map discretization.Simultaneously,a distributed UAV swarm system architecture is adopted,which,through the integration of multi-scale maps,addresses the issues of redundant operations and flight conflicts inmulti-UAV cooperative coverage.Secondly,the heuristic mechanism of the A^(*)algorithmis combinedwith full-coverage path planning,and this approach is incorporated at the initial stage ofDeep Q-Network(DQN)algorithm training to provide effective guidance in action selection,thereby accelerating convergence.Additionally,a prioritized experience replay mechanism is introduced to further enhance the coverage performance of the algorithm.To evaluate the efficacy of the proposed algorithm,simulation experiments were conducted in several irregular environments and compared with several popular algorithms.Simulation results show that the SADQNalgorithmoutperforms othermethods,achieving performance comparable to that of the baseline prior algorithm,with an average coverage efficiency exceeding 2.6 and fewer turning maneuvers.In addition,the algorithm demonstrates excellent generalization ability,enabling it to adapt to different environments.
基金National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant No.52472417)to provide fund for conducting experiments.
文摘Complex multi-area collaborative coverage path planning in dynamic environments poses a significant challenge for multi-fixed-wing UAVs(multi-UAV).This study establishes a comprehensive framework that incorporates UAV capabilities,terrain,complex areas,and mission dynamics.A novel dynamic collaborative path planning algorithm is introduced,designed to ensure complete coverage of designated areas.This algorithm meticulously optimizes the operation,entry,and transition paths for each UAV,while also establishing evaluation metrics to refine coverage sequences for each area.Additionally,a three-dimensional path is computed utilizing an altitude descent method,effectively integrating twodimensional coverage paths with altitude constraints.The efficacy of the proposed approach is validated through digital simulations and mixed-reality semi-physical experiments across a variety of dynamic scenarios,including both single-area and multi-area coverage by multi-UAV.Results show that the coverage paths generated by this method significantly reduce both computation time and path length,providing a reliable solution for dynamic multi-UAV mission planning in semi-physical environments.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (61903036, 61822304)Shanghai Municipal Science and Technology Major Project (2021SHZDZX0100)。
文摘Collaborative coverage path planning(CCPP) refers to obtaining the shortest paths passing over all places except obstacles in a certain area or space. A multi-unmanned aerial vehicle(UAV) collaborative CCPP algorithm is proposed for the urban rescue search or military search in outdoor environment.Due to flexible control of small UAVs, it can be considered that all UAVs fly at the same altitude, that is, they perform search tasks on a two-dimensional plane. Based on the agents’ motion characteristics and environmental information, a mathematical model of CCPP problem is established. The minimum time for UAVs to complete the CCPP is the objective function, and complete coverage constraint, no-fly constraint, collision avoidance constraint, and communication constraint are considered. Four motion strategies and two communication strategies are designed. Then a distributed CCPP algorithm is designed based on hybrid strategies. Simulation results compared with patternbased genetic algorithm(PBGA) and random search method show that the proposed method has stronger real-time performance and better scalability and can complete the complete CCPP task more efficiently and stably.
基金the National Key R&D Plan of China(No.2021YFE0105000)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.52074213)+1 种基金the Shaanxi Key R&D Plan Project(No.2021SF-472)the Yulin Science and Technology Plan Project(No.CXY-2020-036).
文摘Safety patrol inspection in chemical industrial parks is a complex multi-objective task with multiple degrees of freedom.Traditional pointer instruments with advantages like high reliability and strong adaptability to harsh environment,are widely applied in such parks.However,they rely on manual readings which have problems like heavy patrol workload,high labor cost,high false positives/negatives and poor timeliness.To address the above problems,this study proposes a path planning method for robot patrol in chemical industrial parks,where a path optimization model based on improved iterated local search and random variable neighborhood descent(ILS-RVND)algorithm is established by integrating the actual requirements of patrol tasks in chemical industrial parks.Further,the effectiveness of the model and algorithm is verified by taking real park data as an example.The results show that compared with GA and ILS-RVND,the improved algorithm reduces quantification cost by about 24%and saves patrol time by about 36%.Apart from shortening the patrol time of robots,optimizing their patrol path and reducing their maintenance loss,the proposed algorithm also avoids the untimely patrol of robots and enhances the safety factor of equipment.
基金supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China(62273068)the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(3132023512)Dalian Science and Technology Innovation Fund(2019J12GX040).
文摘This paper aims to address the problem of multi-UAV cooperative search for multiple targets in a mountainous environment,considering the constraints of UAV dynamics and prior environmental information.Firstly,using the target probability distribution map,two strategies of information fusion and information diffusion are employed to solve the problem of environmental information inconsistency caused by different UAVs searching different areas,thereby improving the coordination of UAV groups.Secondly,the task region is decomposed into several high-value sub-regions by using data clustering method.Based on this,a hierarchical search strategy is proposed,which allows precise or rough search in different probability areas by adjusting the altitude of the aircraft,thereby improving the search efficiency.Third,the Elite Dung Beetle Optimization Algorithm(EDBOA)is proposed based on bionics by accurately simulating the social behavior of dung beetles to plan paths that satisfy the UAV dynamics constraints and adapt to the mountainous terrain,where the mountain is considered as an obstacle to be avoided.Finally,the objective function for path optimization is formulated by considering factors such as coverage within the task region,smoothness of the search path,and path length.The effectiveness and superiority of the proposed schemes are verified by the simulation.
文摘It is difficult to solve complete coverage path planning directly in the obstructed area. Therefore, in this paper, we propose a method of complete coverage path planning with improved area division. Firstly, the boustrophedon cell decomposition method is used to partition the map into sub-regions. The complete coverage paths within each sub-region are obtained by the Boustrophedon back-and-forth motions, and the order of traversal of the sub-regions is then described as a generalised traveling salesman problem with pickup and delivery based on the relative positions of the vertices of each sub-region. An adaptive large neighbourhood algorithm is proposed to quickly obtain solution results in traversal order. The effectiveness of the improved algorithm on traversal cost reduction is verified in this paper through multiple sets of experiments. .
基金The National Natural Science Foundation of China(No.50475076)the National High Technology Research and Development Pro-gram of China(863Program)(No.2006AA04Z234)
文摘The environment modeling algorithm named rectangular decomposition, which is composed of cellular nodes and interleaving networks, is proposed. The principle of environment modeling is to divide the environment into individual square sub-areas. Each sub-area is orientated by the central point of the sub-areas called a node. The rectangular map based on the square map can enlarge the square area side size to increase the coverage efficiency in the case of there being an adjacent obstacle. Based on this algorithm, a new coverage algorithm, which includes global path planning and local path planning, is introduced. In the global path planning, uncovered subspaces are found by using a special rule. A one-dimensional array P, which is used to obtain the searching priority of node in every direction, is defined as the search rule. The array P includes the condition of coverage towards the adjacent cells, the condition of connectivity and the priorities defined by the user in all eight directions. In the local path planning, every sub-area is covered by using template models according to the shape of the environment. The simulation experiments show that the coverage algorithm is simple, efficient and adapted for complex two- dimensional environments.
基金supported in part by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities(No.NZ18008)。
文摘Using the traditional swarm intelligence algorithm to solve the cooperative path planning problem for multi-UAVs is easy to incur the problems of local optimization and a slow convergence rate.A cooperative path planning method for multi-UAVs based on the improved sheep optimization is proposed to tackle these.Firstly,based on the three-dimensional planning space,a multi-UAV cooperative cost function model is established according to the path planning requirements,and an initial track set is constructed by combining multiple-population ideas.Then an improved sheep optimization is proposed and used to solve the path planning problem and obtain multiple cooperative paths.The simulation results show that the sheep optimization can meet the requirements of path planning and realize the cooperative path planning of multi-UAVs.Compared with grey wolf optimizer(GWO),improved gray wolf optimizer(IGWO),chaotic gray wolf optimizer(CGWO),differential evolution(DE)algorithm,and particle swam optimization(PSO),the convergence speed and search accuracy of the improved sheep optimization are significantly improved.
基金the National Science and Technology Support Program(No.2015BAG20B05)
文摘A new method for a cooperative multi-task allocation problem(CMTAP) is proposed in this paper,taking into account the multi-ship, multi-target, multi-task and multi-constraint characteristics in a multi-ship cooperative driving(MCD) system. On the basis of the general CMTAP model, an MCD task assignment model is established. Furthermore, a genetic ant colony hybrid algorithm(GACHA) is proposed for this model using constraints, including timing constraints, multi-ship collaboration constraints and ship capacity constraints. This algorithm uses a genetic algorithm(GA) based on a task sequence, while the crossover and mutation operators are based on similar tasks. In order to reduce the dependence of the GA on the initial population, an ant colony algorithm(ACA) is used to produce the initial population. In order to meet the environmental constraints of ship navigation, the results of the task allocation and path planning are combined to generate an MCD task planning scheme. The results of a simulated experiment using simulated data show that the proposed method can make the assignment more optimized on the basis of satisfying the task assignment constraints and the ship navigation environment constraints. Moreover, the experimental results using real data also indicate that the proposed method can find the optimal solution rapidly, and thus improve the task allocation efficiency.
基金the Shanghai Pujiang Program (No.22PJD030),the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos.61603244 and 71904116)the National Natural Science Foundation of China-Shandong Joint Fund (No.U2006228)。
文摘The overall performance of multi-robot collaborative systems is significantly affected by the multi-robot task allocation.To improve the effectiveness,robustness,and safety of multi-robot collaborative systems,a multimodal multi-objective evolutionary algorithm based on deep reinforcement learning is proposed in this paper.The improved multimodal multi-objective evolutionary algorithm is used to solve multi-robot task allo-cation problems.Moreover,a deep reinforcement learning strategy is used in the last generation to provide a high-quality path for each assigned robot via an end-to-end manner.Comparisons with three popular multimodal multi-objective evolutionary algorithms on three different scenarios of multi-robot task allocation problems are carried out to verify the performance of the proposed algorithm.The experimental test results show that the proposed algorithm can generate sufficient equivalent schemes to improve the availability and robustness of multi-robot collaborative systems in uncertain environments,and also produce the best scheme to improve the overall task execution efficiency of multi-robot collaborative systems.
文摘为了研究地面车辆与无人机在巡检过程中的最佳任务分配策略及路径规划问题,提出一种两阶段混合式启发算法——改进自适应大邻域搜索(improved adaptive large neighborhood search,IALNS)算法。第一阶段根据待巡检节点的不同需求等级及距离等因素,利用聚类算法对目标节点进行划分;第二阶段采用一种混合式启发算法解决路线调度问题,增加6种新的局部优化算子,引入节点重分配策略,经过迭代得到成本最小的车辆与无人机协同混合路线。对所提算法解和其他算法解进行测试和比较分析,试验数据表明,IALNS算法在解决车辆与无人机协同巡检问题时具有显著优势。
