A New Searching Approach Using Improved Multi-Ant Colony Scheme for Multi-UAVs in Unknown Environments

In this research, an important topic of cooperative search for multi-dynamic targets in unknown sea area by unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is studied based on improved multi-ant colony theory (IMAC). A specialized multi-UAV sea area search map is established, in which a novel target probability map (TPM) was designed to reduce the impact of uncertainties caused by dynamics targets. Then, the transfer rules of the cell were determined for multi-UAV by improving the behavior criterion of the ant colony algorithm and the updating principle of the pheromone map. Finally, the performance of the proposed method is tested in several search scenarios with different features, and the statistical comparison with the traditional algorithm shows the superiority of the new method.