A picture fuzzy SWARA–VIKOR framework for evaluating drone-swarm navigation and mission-coordination strategies under uncertainty
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: Intelligent decision-making frameworks need to be able to handle operational uncertainty, ambiguous expert judgments, and interactions among mission attributes to navigate and coordinate missions in an autonomous drone swarm efficiently. Traditional optimization and decision models do not effectively represent ambiguous expert judgments and critical navigation and coordination factors that impact the behavior of the systems in a nonlinear way. To overcome all these limitations, this study proposes a Picture Fuzzy Stepwise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis–VIšekriterijumsko KOmpromisno Rangiranje (PF-SWARA–VIKOR) framework for evaluating drone-swarm strategies under uncertain conditions. PF-SWARA weighting begins with an expert-based screening phase to determine the relevance of the criteria, allowing only the most relevant criteria to proceed to the weighting and ranking phase. Picture Fuzzy Sets (PFSs) provide a more complete representation of uncertainty and hesitation compared to ordinary or intuitionistic fuzzy sets by means of positive, neutral, negative, and refusal degrees that model expert ratings. While the criterion weights are obtained by PF-SWARA, the five strategies centralized, decentralized consensus-based, leader–follower, hybrid-adaptive, and behaviour-based reactive coordination strategies are ranked by PF-VIKOR. According to the hypothetical application, \({U}_{4}\) is the first preference, since it has the minimum compromise value \({\mathcal{Q}}_{4}=0.0000\) , and the preference order is \({U}_{4}\succ {U}_{2}\succ {U}_{1}\succ {U}_{5}\succ {U}_{3}\) . The most influential criteria are \({L}_{7}\) and \({L}_{1}\) , with weights of \(0.1360\) and \(0.1357\) , respectively. Furthermore, \({U}_{4}\) is first across all values of \(\tau =0.1 to 0.9\) , but the rankings in-between shift depending on the relative strength of the group's utility and the individual's regret. Since the case study uses simulated experts and hypothetical evaluations, the results are of methodological applicability and not empirically generalizable.
Source: Scientific Reports
Authors: Kheir Saadaoui, Asma Farhad, Kifayat Ullah
Language: English
Field: Decision Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $2,690
OpenAlex ID: W7221315300