Multi-Strategy Improved Harris Hawk Optimization Algorithm and Its Application in Path Planning

Path planning is a key problem in the autonomous navigation of mobile robots and a research hotspot in the field of robotics. Harris Hawk Optimization (HHO) faces challenges such as low solution accuracy and a slow convergence speed, and it easy falls into local optimization in path planning applications. For this reason, this paper proposes a Multi-strategy Improved Harris Hawk Optimization (MIHHO) algorithm. First, the double adaptive weight strategy is used to enhance the search capability of the algorithm to significantly improve the convergence accuracy and speed of path planning; second, the Dimension Learning-based Hunting (DLH) search strategy is introduced to effectively balance exploration and exploitation while maintaining the diversity of the population; and then, Position update strategy based on Dung Beetle Optimizer algorithm is proposed to reduce the algorithm's possibility of falling into local optimal solutions during path planning. The experimental results of the comparison of the test functions show that the MIHHO algorithm is ranked first in terms of performance, with significant improvements in optimization seeking ability, convergence speed, and stability. Finally, MIHHO is applied to robot path planning, and the test results show that in four environments with different complexities and scales, the average path lengths of MIHHO are improved by 1.99%, 14.45%, 4.52%, and 9.19% compared to HHO, respectively. These results indicate that MIHHO has significant performance advantages in path planning tasks and helps to improve the path planning efficiency and accuracy of mobile robots.