Trajectory online optimization for unmanned combat aerial vehicle using combined strategy

This paper presents a combined strategy to solve the trajectory online optimization problem for unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV). Firstly, as trajectory directly optimizing is quite time costing, an online trajectory functional representation method is proposed. Considering the practical requirement of online trajectory, the 4-order polynomial function is used to represent the trajectory, and which can be determined by two independent parameters with the trajectory terminal conditions; thus, the trajectory online optimization problem is converted into the optimization of the two parameters, which largely lowers the complexity of the optimization problem. Furthermore, the scopes of the two parameters have been assessed into small ranges using the golden section ratio method. Secondly, a multi-population rotation strategy differential evolution approach (MPRDE) is designed to optimize the two parameters; in which, “current-to-best/1/bin”, “current-torand/1/bin” and “rand/2/bin” strategies with fixed parameter settings are designed, these strategies are rotationally used by three subpopulations. Thirdly, the rolling optimization method is applied to model the online trajectory optimization process. Finally, simulation results demonstrate the efficiency and real-time calculation capability of the designed combined strategy for UCAV trajectory online optimizing under dynamic and complicated environments.