Utilising the Bees Algorithm for UAV Path Planning—A Simultaneous Collision Avoidance and Shortest Path Approach

Due to the significant interest in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), numerous metaheuristic or nature-inspired algorithms have been proposed for path-planning problems, allowing units to navigate through diverse threats effectively. By strategically avoiding threats identified by radar, these algorithms aim to determine the most optimal route. This chapter explores the application of two variants of the Bees Algorithm (BA) to address this issue and evaluates their performance against other metaheuristic algorithms. The comparison encompasses various configurations of waypoints and threats, with statistical analyses conducted to assess performance differences. The findings indicate that the Bees Algorithm with two parameters (BA2) surpasses the performance of the Basic BA and other metaheuristic algorithms. Statistical estimates derived from the data are utilised for comparisons, ensuring that optimisation parameters for all algorithms are selected unbiased and meaningfully.