Optimization of Farmland Cultivated Land Path Based on Hybrid Adaptive Neighborhood Search Algorithm

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new path planning framework for large-scale farms that improves efficiency and reduces energy use through advanced optimization techniques.

Contribution

The novel contribution is a hybrid optimization framework (HANS) combining PCA, ALNS, and TS for adaptive and efficient agricultural path planning.

Findings

HANS improves average coverage rate by 0.51 percentage points and reduces fuel consumption by 4.34% compared to fixed-direction planning.

Compared to GA, PSO, TS, and SA, HANS reduces path length by 0.37–0.83% and energy consumption by 0.61–1.03%.

The framework uses a Pareto-set-based strategy with three solution selection methods to balance coverage, energy, and path length.

Abstract

Path planning for large-scale agricultural fields faces challenges such as irregular field shapes, uncertain boundaries, and the need to balance path efficiency, energy consumption, and coverage quality. To address these problems, this research introduces a strategy-aware hierarchical hybrid optimization framework (HANS) for autonomous agricultural operations. This framework introduces a global principal axis extraction method based on Principal Component Analysis (PCA), utilizing the statistical distribution of field boundaries to guide path direction, thereby improving robustness against boundary noise and irregular geometries. The framework integrates Adaptive Large Neighborhood Search (ALNS) for global exploration and Tabu Search (TS) for local optimization, forming a tightly coordinated hybrid structure. The framework further employs a Pareto-set-based decision support selection strategy to solve a multi-objective optimization model encompassing machine kinematics, turning patterns, and energy-aware cost evaluation. This strategy provides three methods: weighted preference-based compromise solution selection, crowding distance-based diversified solution selection, and single-objective extreme value-based dedicated optimization solution selection. To balance the impact of path length, energy consumption, and coverage rate, we assigned equal or nearly equal weights to them (i.e., (0.33, 0.33, 0.34)). Furthermore, the framework incorporates operators and feedback learning mechanisms specific to agricultural coverage path problems to enable adaptive operator selection and reduce reliance on manual parameter tuning. Simulation results under three representative field scenarios show that compared to fixed-direction planning, HANS improves the average coverage rate by 0.51 percentage points and reduces fuel consumption by 4.34%. Compared to Genetic Algorithm (GA), Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), Tabu Search (TS), and Simulated Annealing (SA), the proposed method shortens the working path length by 0.37–0.83%, improves coverage rate by 0.34–1.11%, and reduces energy consumption by 0.61–1.03%, while maintaining competitive computational costs. These results demonstrate the effectiveness and practicality of HANS in large-scale autonomous farming operations.

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