Real-time path planning to track moving target in complex environments for UAV

In complex environments, when unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) tracks a moving target, there are some defects on real-time capability and feasibility in the existing algorithm of path planning. A new heuristic direction of the rolling window was designed to make route search and track moving target. In the rolling window, the stream function was utilized for avoiding obstacle. To satisfy the constraints of UAV, the rolling window was triangle, also with adaptive function. In potential flows, a potential function was proposed to overcome the trap of terrain, and the route was smoothed. The simulation results show that this hybrid method could reduce the time and space complexity, and find a satisfactory route for UAV in complex environments when tracks moving target.