The UAV 3D route planning method based on the guide points

Fast track planning capability is one of the requirements of the UAV mission planning system. In order to improve the speed of the UAV route planning, a 3D fast path planning method based on guide points was presented in this paper. A tiered strategy was used that the UAV flight path planning was divided into two levels: global planning and local planning. GA algorithm was used for global planning to generate a regional set of points which were in optimal or suboptimal planning areas, and guide points were generated from these areas. SAS (sparse A search) algorithm was used for local planning according to the guidance provided by the global planning, which will result in a feasible track rapidly. Simulation results show that the method combines the advantages of genetic algorithm and SAS algorithm. The planning track is better than the simplex GA or SAS algorithm, and improves the speed of planning evidently.