Mushtaq, Muhammad UmerVenter, H.S. (Hein)Muhammad, OwaisShafique, TamoorAwwad, Fuad A.Ismail, Emad A.A.2025-04-152025-04-152025-03Mushtaq, M.U., Venter, H., Muhammad, O. et al. 2025, 'Cognitive strategies for UAV trajectory optimization: ensuring safety and energy efficiency in real-world scenarios', Ain Shams Engineering Journal, vol. 16, no. 3, art. 103301, pp. 1-10, doi : 10.1016/j.asej.2025.103301.2090-4479 (print)2090-4495 (online)10.1016/j.asej.2025.103301http://hdl.handle.net/2263/102052Many sectors in aerial transportation use unmanned aircraft vehicles (UAVs) extensively. This becomes even more challenging in complex environments where not only it is required to avoid obstacles, but it also must be maintained for a prolonged period of time. This paper presents a novel approach to increase UAV autonomy through safe and efficient flight trajectory design. An optimization problem is formulated with external and internal safety constraints, and traversing collision free paths. The proposed work offers an energy efficient RRT algorithm, which is used to assess multiple trajectory alternatives. The simulation results confirm the achieved performance in finding the optimal energy path while obeying to the safety constraint. The data and performance metrics, show the system operated in a safe and energy efficient manner. This work provides a unified framework for UAV trajectory planning that guarantees a trade-off between safety and energy efficiency.en© 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of Faculty of Engineering, Ain Shams University. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).Unmanned aircraft vehicle (UAV)Energy-efficient trajectory planningObstacle avoidanceOptimizationReal-time applicationsSDG-09: Industry, innovation and infrastructureArticle