Multi-Strategy Improved Red-Tailed Hawk Algorithm for Real-Environment Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Path Planning

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology has advanced significantly, enabling its widespread use in critical applications such as surveillance, search and rescue, and environmental monitoring. However, planning reliable, safe, and economical paths for UAVs in real-world environments remains a significant challenge. In this paper, we propose a multi-strategy improved red-tailed hawk (IRTH) algorithm for UAV path planning in real environments. First, we enhance the quality of the initial population in the algorithm by using a stochastic reverse learning strategy based on Bernoulli mapping. Then, the quality of the initial population is further improved through a dynamic position update optimization strategy based on stochastic mean fusion, which enhances the exploration capabilities of the algorithm and helps it explore promising solution spaces more effectively. Additionally, we proposed an optimization method for frontier position updates based on a trust domain, which better balances exploration and exploitation. To evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm, we compare it with 11 other algorithms using the IEEE CEC2017 test set and perform statistical analysis to assess differences. The experimental results demonstrate that the IRTH algorithm yields competitive performance. Finally, to validate its applicability in real-world scenarios, we apply the IRTH algorithm to the UAV path-planning problem in practical environments, achieving improved results and successfully performing path planning for UAVs.