MISAO: A Multi-Strategy Improved Snow Ablation Optimizer for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Path Planning

The snow ablation optimizer (SAO) is a meta-heuristic technique used to seek the best solution for sophisticated problems. In response to the defects in the SAO algorithm, which has poor search efficiency and is prone to getting trapped in local optima, this article suggests a multi-strategy improved (MISAO) snow ablation optimizer. It is employed in the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) path planning issue. To begin with, the tent chaos and elite reverse learning initialization strategies are merged to extend the diversity of the population; secondly, a greedy selection method is deployed to retain superior alternative solutions for the upcoming iteration; then, the Harris hawk (HHO) strategy is introduced to enhance the exploitation capability, which prevents trapping in partial ideals; finally, the red-tailed hawk (RTH) is adopted to perform the global exploration, which, enhances global optimization capability. To comprehensively evaluate MISAO’s optimization capability, a battery of digital optimization investigations is executed using 23 test functions, and the results of the comparative analysis show that the suggested algorithm has high solving accuracy and convergence velocity. Finally, the effectiveness and feasibility of the optimization path of the MISAO algorithm are demonstrated in the UAV path planning project.