Work

Cognitive strategies for UAV trajectory optimization: Ensuring safety and energy efficiency in real-world scenarios

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Many sectors in aerial transportation use unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs) extensively. This becomes even more challenging in complex environments where not only it is required to avoid obstacles, but it also must be maintained for a prolonged period of time. This paper presents a novel approach to increase UAV autonomy through safe and efficient flight trajectory design. An optimization problem is formulated with external and internal safety constraints, and traversing collision free paths. The proposed work offers an energy efficient RRT algorithm, which is used to assess multiple trajectory alternatives. The simulation results confirm the achieved performance in finding the optimal energy path while obeying to the safety constraint. The data and performance metrics, show the system operated in a safe and energy efficient manner. This work provides a unified framework for UAV trajectory planning that guarantees a trade-off between safety and energy efficiency.

Source: Ain Shams Engineering Journal

DOI: 10.1016/j.asej.2025.103301

Authors: Mushtaq Muhammad Umer, Hein Venter, Owais Muhammad, Tamoor Shafique, Fuad A. Awwad, Emad A.A. Ismail

Institutions: University of Pretoria, Southwest University of Science and Technology, University of Staffordshire, King Saud University

Language: English

Topic: Robotic Path Planning Algorithms

Subfield: Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition

Field: Computer Science

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,200