Special Issues

Drones publishes Special Issues to create collections of papers on specific topics, with the aim of building a community of authors and readers to discuss the latest research and develop new ideas and research directions. Special Issues are led by Guest Editors, who are experts on the topic and all Special Issue submissions follow MDPI's standard editorial process. The journal’s Editor-in-Chief and/or designated Editorial Board Member will oversee Guest Editor appointments and Special Issue proposals, checking their content for relevance and ensuring the suitability of the material for the journal. The papers published in a Special Issue will be collected and displayed on a dedicated page of the journal’s website. Further information on MDPI's Special Issue polices and Guest Editor responsibilities can be found here. For any inquiries related to a Special Issue, please contact the Editorial Office.

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Unmanned Aerial Manipulation with Physical Interaction
edited by Yushu Yu and Vincenzo Lippiello
submission deadline 20 Feb 2025 | Viewed by 147 | Submission Open
Keywords: unmanned aerial manipulation; cooperative unmanned aerial transportation; fully actuated unmanned aerial vehicle; interaction control; human– robot interaction; localization; reinforcement learning
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
UAVs for Coastal Surveying
edited by and Brian S. Burnham
submission deadline 28 Feb 2025 | 4 articles | Viewed by 15286 | Submission Open
Keywords: UAS; UAV; drone; technology; coastal; marine; data collection; monitoring; mapping; modelling; survey; artificial intelligence (AI); information extraction; geo-visualization; communication; planning; decision-making
Application of Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) in Vegetation Monitoring
edited by
submission deadline 28 Feb 2025 | 8 articles | Viewed by 12999 | Submission Open
Keywords: UAV; vegetation monitoring; vegetation mapping; image analysis; plant phenotyping; spatio-temporal analysis
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Agriculture and Forestry)
Operations and Maintenance (O&M) of Offshore Renewal Energy (ORE) Devices Using Marine Vehicles and Drones submission deadline 28 Feb 2025 | 3 articles | Viewed by 11675 | Submission Open
Keywords: Marine netcentric systems; Offshore operations and maintenance; Artificial intelligence; IoT and edge computing networking; SLAM; Modelling and control; Digital twinning; Hybrid marine vessels; Multirobot systems; Robotics in extreme environments
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Ecology)
Drones in Sustainable Agriculture
edited by Zhiyan Zhou and Rui Jiang
submission deadline 28 Feb 2025 | 3 articles | Viewed by 10097 | Submission Open
Keywords: sensor fusion; signal/image processing; agriculture/farm; controlling system/flight control system; navigation and position/orientation; on-line and real-time processing of remote sensing data; UAV-based sensing; spraying; seeding; fertilizing; weeding; etc.; novel sensing system/method for phenotypes; autonomous take-off and landing; geometric and radiometric sensors; UAV control; obstacle sensing; and avoidance in farm; the calibration of imageries
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Agriculture and Forestry)
Advances in Guidance, Navigation, and Control
edited by
submission deadline 28 Feb 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 1032 | Submission Open
Keywords: guidance systems; navigation systems; control systems; unmanned systems
Drone Communication, Networking, and Trajectory Control in Urban Environments
edited by , Yu Zhang, Ningning Hou and Yimeng Feng
submission deadline 28 Feb 2025 | Viewed by 290 | Submission Open
Keywords: drone communication and networking; multi-drone coordination; real-time data transmission; urban air traffic management; drone navigation; trajectory planning; sustainable urban transport; on-board AI processing; millimeter wave radar enabled drone navigation; drone remote sensing using millimeter wave radar; LoRa-assisted drone communication and networking; LoRa for long range drone applications; novel drone applications; drone assisted wireless communications for 5G and beyond; drone security; integrated sensing and communication drone networks; remote object detection from drone; urban computing
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)
Swarm Intelligence-Inspired Planning and Control for Drones
edited by , Haitao Nie, Jinliang Shao, , , and
submission deadline 28 Feb 2025 | Viewed by 196 | Submission Open
Keywords: drone task and path planning; cooperative control; collision avoidance; swarm intelligence-based optimization; communication and coordination
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
Advances in Autonomy of Underwater Vehicles (AUVs)
edited by , Shuangshuang Fan and
submission deadline 10 Mar 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 745 | Submission Open
Keywords: autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs); underwater gliders; guidance; navigation; and control; informative planning; AI and machine learning; online decision-making; adaptive sampling; sensor fusion; underwater communication; multi-vehicle coordination; mission-oriented autonomy
Advances of UAV Remote Sensing for Plant Phenology submission deadline 15 Mar 2025 | 2 articles | Viewed by 5117 | Submission Open
Keywords: phenology; drone; UAS; UAV; remote sensing
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Agriculture and Forestry)
UAVs for Nature Conservation Tasks in Complex Environments
edited by Tom Richardson, Ulrik Pagh Schultz Lundquist and
submission deadline 15 Mar 2025 | Viewed by 289 | Submission Open
Keywords: UAV/MAV; perception; collaborative; wildlife; complex environments; navigation; mapping; real-time
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Ecology)
Advances in the Use of UAVs for Monitoring and Analysis of Forage and Agricultural Crops: Technologies, Methods and Applications
edited by and Luciana Sandra Bastos De Souza
submission deadline 17 Mar 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 1057 | Submission Open
Keywords: precision agriculture; forage crops; agricultural monitoring; image analysis; yield estimation; thermal imaging; machine learning; 3D modeling; data modeling
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Agriculture and Forestry)
Visual Language Models and Large Language Models for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles submission deadline 18 Mar 2025 | Viewed by 705 | Submission Open
Keywords: large language models; visual language models; unmanned aerial vehicles; autonomous navigation; few-shot learning; intelligent UAV systems
Dynamics Modeling and Conceptual Design of UAVs
edited by Ni Li, Ban Wang, Shuhui Bu and
submission deadline 20 Mar 2025 | 6 articles | Viewed by 6821 | Submission Open
Keywords: dynamics modeling; conceptual design; UAV; control strategies; system identification
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
Distributed Control, Optimization, and Game of UAV Swarm Systems (2nd Edition)
edited by Zhi Feng, Rui Yan, , Xiaoduo Li and Qing Wang
submission deadline 20 Mar 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 586 | Submission Open
Keywords: UAV swarm systems; distributed control; formation control; distributed optimization; intelligent motion planning; swarm game; distributed Nash equilibrium seeking
Optimal Design, Dynamics, and Navigation of Drones
edited by and
submission deadline 21 Mar 2025 | 6 articles | Viewed by 11147 | Submission Open
Keywords: optimal design; dynamics; drones; flight control; stability; path planning; sensor fusion; perception; autonomous navigation
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
Space–Air–Ground Integrated Networks for 6G
edited by , , , and Zhiyong Feng
submission deadline 21 Mar 2025 | 7 articles | Viewed by 6479 | Submission Open
Keywords: satellite- and UAV-assisted 6G communications; space– air– ground integrated network; integrated sensing and communications; trajectory optimization and resource allocation; physical layer security and radio monitoring; artificial intelligence in SAGINs for 6G communications; unmanned aerial vehicles; drone communications; UAV ad hoc networks; unmanned aerial systems
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)
Unmanned Traffic Management Systems
edited by and
submission deadline 25 Mar 2025 | 7 articles | Viewed by 10874 | Submission Open
Keywords: unmanned traffic management; flight information management; integrated traffic management; air traffic management; unmanned aircraft; communications; navigation and surveillance (CNS); traffic flow management; collision mitigation; risk analysis
The Application of Image Processing and Signal Processing Techniques in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
edited by , Huai Yu, Jinyong Chen and
submission deadline 25 Mar 2025 | 4 articles | Viewed by 9608 | Submission Open
Keywords: drone-view object detection and recognition; drone-view object tracking; UAV sensor fusion; depth estimation for drones; UAV SLAM; drone path planning and navigation; aerial 3D reconstruction; aerial optical/thermal/event image processing; aerial image deblur and enhancement; drone-view powerline detection; drone swarm
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
Advances in Civil Applications of Unmanned Aircraft Systems: 2nd Edition
edited by , Fernando Veiga López, Enrique Aldao Pensado and Gabriel Fontenla-Carrera
submission deadline 25 Mar 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 1828 | Submission Open
Keywords: drones; surveying; unmanned aircraft systems; regulations; swarm; photogrammetry; remote sensing; earth observation; guidance; navigation; and control; aerodynamics
Technologies and Applications of UAV Channel Models in Communications and Spectrum Awareness submission deadline 26 Mar 2025 | 8 articles | Viewed by 8343 | Submission Open
Keywords: UAV channel model  ; UAV channel sounding  ; UAV ISAC  ; UAV communication  ; UAV spectrum sensing  ; UAV trajectory planning
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)
Technologies and Applications for Drone Audition submission deadline 26 Mar 2025 | 3 articles | Viewed by 5632 | Submission Open
Keywords: drone audition  ; acoustic signal processing  ; acoustic sensing  ; sound source localization  ; sound source separation  ; sound identification/recognition  ; noise reduction  ; surrounding environment recognition  ; search and rescue
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in UAV Technology
edited by , Peng Wei, William J. Beksi and Dongfang Liu
submission deadline 31 Mar 2025 | 6 articles | Viewed by 11190 | Submission Open
Keywords: artificial intelligence; machine learning; UAV; object detection and tracking; localization and navigation; decision making; planning and control; swarm coordination; geospatial mapping; precision agriculture; environmental monitoring
Feature Papers for Drones in Agriculture and Forestry Section: 2nd Edition
edited by and
submission deadline 31 Mar 2025 | 4 articles | Viewed by 3215 | Submission Open
Keywords: drones for agriculture:; personal remote sensing (PRS); smart farming (crops; dairy; grazing; etc.); site-specific management (SSM) of water; pesticide; fertilizer; etc.; integrated pest management (IPM); phenotyping; yield prediction; environmental emissions (GHG; dust; etc.); water-saving agriculture and irrigation management; applications (crop dusting; seeding; etc.); soil moisture; soil health; soil variability; and carbon-negative practices; smart sensing and smart big data analytics; drones for forestry:; forest fire sensing and management; precision forestry and forestry management; forest mapping and biodiversity; mapping of canopy distribution and gaps; capturing forestry informatics (biomass; stockpile; fuel load; etc.); three-dimensional mapping for carbon storage; tree planting and reforesting with drones; applications (surface fertilizer; growth stimulant; pesticides; etc.); monitoring illegal logging and quarrying (forest security); combating deforestation and desert forestation dynamics; smart sensing and smart big data analytics
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Agriculture and Forestry)
Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Swarm-Enabled Edge Computing
edited by , , Qihui Wu, , and
submission deadline 31 Mar 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 1347 | Submission Open
Keywords: unmanned aerial vehicle swarm; edge computing; energy efficiency; resource allocation; performance analysis; computing security
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)
Urban Traffic Monitoring and Analysis Using UAVs
edited by , Ansar Yasar and
submission deadline 31 Mar 2025 | Viewed by 109 | Submission Open
Keywords: urban traffic monitoring; unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs); data analytics; smart cities; traffic flow optimization; traffic safety; real-time; intelligent transportation systems; multi-UAV systems; traffic enforcement
(This special issue belongs to the Section Innovative Urban Mobility)
Conceptual Design, Modeling, and Control Strategies of Drones 3rd Edition
edited by
submission deadline 1 Apr 2025 | 6 articles | Viewed by 10449 | Submission Open
Keywords: unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs); UAV control systems; navigation and control of collaborating UAVs
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
Advances in Perception, Communications, and Control for Drones submission deadline 10 Apr 2025 | 9 articles | Viewed by 14015 | Submission Open
Keywords: perception; drone communications; autonomous control; communication-oriented control; perception-aware control; drone swarms
Applications of UVs in Digital Photogrammetry and Image Processing submission deadline 10 Apr 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 1739 | Submission Open
Keywords: uncrewed vehicles (UVs); photogrammetry; digital mapping; cartography; GIS
Flight Control and Collision Avoidance of UAVs
edited by Rodney Swee Huat Teo and
submission deadline 15 Apr 2025 | 4 articles | Viewed by 5493 | Submission Open
Keywords: artificial intelligence; autonomous navigation; collision avoidance; guidance systems; computer vision; obstacle detection; decision making under uncertainty; safety verification; robust control; multi-object tracking and association; visual servoing; conflict prediction; conflict resolution; collision checking; risk assessment
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
AI for Cybersecurity in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)
edited by , Neji Mensi and Fatima Salahdine
submission deadline 15 Apr 2025 | Viewed by 170 | Submission Open
Keywords: AI-based cybersecurity frameworks; UAS cybersecurity; advanced AI models; secure communication protocols; autonomous systems; data privacy
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)
Advances in Autonomous Underwater Drones
edited by Daxiong Ji, , Pablo Borja, Dena Bazazian and Mohd Hisham Bin Nordin
submission deadline 16 Apr 2025 | 2 articles | Viewed by 4774 | Submission Open
Intelligent Image Processing and Sensing for Drones 2nd Edition
edited by
submission deadline 18 Apr 2025 | 7 articles | Viewed by 8810 | Submission Open
Keywords: visible/infrared thermal/multispectral image analysis; LiDAR/SAR with a drone; security and surveillance; monitoring and inspection; object detection; classification; and tracking; segmentation and feature extraction; image registration and visualization
Drones for Natural Hazards submission deadline 20 Apr 2025 | 4 articles | Viewed by 24851 | Submission Open
Keywords: UAV; drones; hazards; mapping; geographic information science; remote sensing; landslides; floods; wildfires; volcanoes; disasters; relief
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Ecology)
Perception, Decision-Making and Control of Intelligent Unmanned System
edited by , and Jinzhen Mu
submission deadline 20 Apr 2025 | 8 articles | Viewed by 21723 | Submission Open
Resilient Networking and Task Allocation for Drone Swarms
edited by and
submission deadline 20 Apr 2025 | 4 articles | Viewed by 10629 | Submission Open
Keywords: drone swarms; UAV ad hoc networks; swarm cooperative communications; swarm secure issues; swarm cooperative decision making
Advances in Intelligent Coordination Control for Autonomous UUVs
edited by Haitao Zhang, Bin-Bin Hu, , Mingkang Long and Henglai Wei
submission deadline 20 Apr 2025 | Viewed by 240 | Submission Open
Keywords: cooperative control; autonomous underwater unmanned vehicles; decision making; game theory; machine learning; control theory; distributed optimization; intelligent connected vehicles; vehicle dynamics control
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
Advances in Internet of Drones: Applications, Communication Infrastructures, Architectures, and Protocols for FANETs submission deadline 20 Apr 2025 | Viewed by 127 | Submission Open
Keywords: Internet of Drones; FANET; architecture; aerial wireless networks; drone communication; swarm communication
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)
Detection, Identification and Tracking of UAVs and Drones
edited by Richard Han, V.P Nguyen, Karthik Dantu and
submission deadline 24 Apr 2025 | 2 articles | Viewed by 4349 | Submission Open
Keywords: detection; tracking; identification; sensor fusion; artificial intelligence; machine learning; localization
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
Drone-Based Information Fusion to Improve Autonomous Navigation submission deadline 28 Apr 2025 | 3 articles | Viewed by 8073 | Submission Open
Keywords: autonomous navigation; localization; computer vision; information fusion; artificial intelligence
Mobile Fog and Edge Computing in Drone Swarms
edited by , Gokhan Secinti, and
submission deadline 29 Apr 2025 | 2 articles | Viewed by 17551 | Submission Open
Keywords: UAV swarm; mobile fog and edge computing; energy-aware computing; wireless network
Navigation, Control and Mission Planning Advances for Safe, Efficient and Autonomous Drones submission deadline 30 Apr 2025 | 8 articles | Viewed by 21430 | Submission Open
Keywords: drone; path following; navigation; control; machine learning; autonomy; UAV; spacecraft
Advanced Intelligent Decision-Making and Flight Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles 2nd Edition submission deadline 30 Apr 2025 | 3 articles | Viewed by 3396 | Submission Open
Keywords: intelligent decision-making; intelligent control; learning control; discrete control; fault-tolerant control; position/orientation control; disturbance observer; cooperative control; neural networks; adaptive control
Path Planning, Trajectory Tracking and Guidance for UAVs: 2nd Edition submission deadline 30 Apr 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 1230 | Submission Open
Keywords: path planning; trajectory tracking; guidance; navigation; and control; autonomous control; trajectory optimization; formation and reconfiguration
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)
New Trends in Robust and Adaptive Control for Autonomous Systems submission deadline 30 Apr 2025 | Viewed by 332 | Submission Open
Keywords: autonomous systems modeling under disturbances; robust control; adaptative control; external disturbances; internal uncertainties; multi-agent coordination under disturbances
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
Wearable Technologies for Driving Drones: Innovations and Applications
edited by , and Bojan Jerbić
submission deadline 30 Apr 2025 | Viewed by 243 | Submission Open
Keywords: wearable technology; drone control systems; human– drone interaction; bio-sensing; gesture recognition; haptic feedback; robotics; augmented reality (AR); virtual reality (VR); ergonomics in drone piloting
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
Advanced Cross-Domain Unmanned Platform Command and Security Technology
edited by , Jialong Zhang and
submission deadline 10 May 2025 | Viewed by 386 | Submission Open
Keywords: intelligent control; cross-domain; command; cooperation technologies; security; heterogeneous UAV swarms; unmanned platforms
Advances in UAV Networks Towards 6G
edited by Changchuan Yin, and Mingzhe Chen
submission deadline 15 May 2025 | Viewed by 35 | Submission Open
Keywords: UAV swarm; integrated space– air– ground networks; positioning; trajectory design; data collection
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)
Autonomous Drone Navigation in GPS-Denied Environments
edited by and Yang Liu
submission deadline 15 May 2025 | Viewed by 35 | Submission Open
Keywords: autonomous drone navigation; GPS-denied environment; visual– inertial navigation; visual– inertial odometry; simultaneous localization and mapping; resource-constrained autonomous navigation; robust dynamic sensor calibration
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)
Drones and Machine Learning as a Complementary Tools in Wildlife Biology Studies
edited by and
submission deadline 16 May 2025 | Viewed by 83 | Submission Open
Keywords: drones; machine learning; Yolo; DeepLabCut; IR Camera; artificial intelligence; behavioural studies
(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Ecology)
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