An Improved grey wolf optimizer with weighting functions and its application to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles path planning.

The grey wolf optimizer (GWO) is an optimization algorithm that draws inspiration from nature. It is an optimization algorithm based on population that iteratively searches for the optimal solution by simulating the social behavior and hunting behavior of grey wolves. It has recently been shown that GWO can be improved by the introduction of initializing, movement, selecting and updating. In this paper, we extend an improved grey wolf optimizer with weighting functions (IGWO-WFs), which include multi-modal adaptive function, sigmoid function and autoregressive function. The IGWO-WFs has 74% improved to the conventional algorithms. It can be resolved the instability and convergence issues of GWO and investigate the effectiveness of the methods through numerical simulations and the path planning of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). • The output range of sigmoid function can be thresholded to improve algorithmic convergence. • The Multi-modal function has multiple extrema and a strong global search capability. • The Autoregressive function automatically adjusts its parameters to optimize the performance. • Improve the efficiency of DLH strategy. [Display omitted] [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]