{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,6]],"date-time":"2025-11-06T18:10:24Z","timestamp":1762452624945,"version":"build-2065373602"},"reference-count":49,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"11","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,6]],"date-time":"2025-11-06T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1762387200000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100001809","name":"National Natural Science Foundation of China","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["62103209"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["62103209"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100001809","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Research Projects of Putian University","award":["2024175","YJS2024041"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2024175","YJS2024041"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100003392","name":"Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["2020J05213"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["2020J05213"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100003392","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Symmetry"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Path planning for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in mountainous environments requires satisfying terrain clearance and obstacle avoidance constraints while optimizing path length, flight time, and energy consumption. To address these challenges, this paper proposes EC-MOPSO (Epsilon-dominance and Crowding-distance-based Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization). Inspired by the principle of symmetry, the algorithm integrates an adaptive parameter adjustment mechanism with a \u03b5\u2212 dominance\u2013crowding archiving strategy to balance global exploration and local exploitation through spatially symmetric archive management. A safety-repairable B-spline trajectory model ensures smooth and feasible flight paths under complex terrain conditions. Simulation results show that EC-MOPSO reduces path length by 10\u201340%, improves normalized hypervolume by over 25%, and decreases performance variance by 20\u201325%, confirming faster convergence and higher robustness compared with representative multi-objective optimization approaches. Ablation studies further verify that both the adaptive parameter mechanism and the \u03b5\u2212 dominance\u2013crowding strategy significantly enhance convergence stability and overall optimization performance. Overall, EC-MOPSO provides an adaptive and reliable optimization framework for generating efficient, safe, and energy-aware UAV trajectories in real-world mountainous rescue missions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/sym17111890","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,6]],"date-time":"2025-11-06T17:51:43Z","timestamp":1762451503000},"page":"1890","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["An Enhanced MOPSO Algorithm for Multi-Objective UAV Path Planning in Mountainous Environments"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"17","author":[{"given":"Wenxing","family":"Zou","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350100, China"},{"name":"College of Computer and Data Science, Putian University, Putian 351100, China"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-3376-9487","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Hang","family":"Xu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer and Data Science, Putian University, Putian 351100, China"}]},{"given":"Chuze","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Computer and Data Science, Putian University, Putian 351100, China"}]},{"given":"Chuanyu","family":"Wu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350100, China"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,11,6]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"042007","DOI":"10.1088\/1757-899X\/490\/4\/042007","article-title":"Path planning of UAV in mountain area\u2019s forest rescuing","volume":"490","author":"Liu","year":"2019","journal-title":"IOP Conf. 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