Backtracking search algorithm with dynamic population for energy consumption problem of a UAV-assisted IoT data collection system

In recent years, collecting data from IoT devices by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has become a very hot research topic. This paper focuses on the energy consumption problem of a UAV-based IoT data collection system. To solve the considered energy consumption problem, this paper proposes a new population-based optimization algorithm called the backtracking search algorithm with dynamic population (BSADP), which can determine the optimal number and locations of stop points of the UAV simultaneously. In addition, BSADP has a simple framework, which consists of the proposed enhanced backtracking search algorithm (EBSA) and the designed population adjustment mechanism with opposition-based learning (PAMOBL). In the search process, the population is regarded as the entire deployment of the UAV. BSADP firstly generates the trail deployment of the UAV by EBSA and then the next generation deployment of the UAV is produced based on the trail deployment and PAMOBL. The performance of BSADP is investigated by two energy consumption formulations. Experimental results support the superiority of BSADP in optimizing the deployment of the UAV and prove the application value of BSADP in the real scenario. The source code of the proposed algorithm can be found from: https://github.com/jsuzyy/BSADP.