Dear Colleagues,

In the recent years, forest fires have been on the rise, destroying the forests that are the lungs of the earth, providing oxygen for humans and animals. They burn wildlife, houses, cities, humans, cause landslides, and many other catastrophic events. Furthermore, most of these fires are manmade. Drone technology could help prevent these fires by monitoring the forest areas where people are violating camping restrictions, smoking and discarding their cigarettes in forest areas, and engaging in other activities which have the potential to increase the possibility of forest fires. After a forest fire takes place, the communication infrastructure, which includes antennas, power supplies, network servers, are often burned down and are no longer functional. Therefore, a drone with a network router and proper configuration could restore communications between firefighters and all interested parties. In addition, a drone with the proper AI can provide information related to the direction and extent of a fire, as well as advise firefighters on how to effectively fight the fire. The European Commission in an effort to reduce harmful emissions to the environment has drafted a document titled: “Preventing and fighting extreme wildfires with the integration and demonstration of innovative means.”

https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/research_and_innovation/green_deal/gdc_stakeholder_engagement_topic_01-1_fighting_wildfires.pdf

Topics covered in this issue:

1. UAV Design;
2. Materials Choice;
3. Avionics;
4. Instrumentation-Sensors.
5. Digital Image Processing;
6. Pattern Recognition;
7. UAV-Intelligence;
8. Communications for control, telemetry, video transmission;
9. Ground station design;
10. Automatic control-manual control design;
11. Recognition of critical elements for wildfire prevention;
12. Proper communication of alarm events for immediate action so that fires will be prevented;
13. Pattern recognition of events with the potential to cause fires;
14. Transmission of pertinent data to the firefighters so they can fight the fire efficiently;
15. Creating an intelligent system from past experiences to minimize wildfires;
16. Anything relevant to the subject area.

Prof. Dr. Evangelos Yfantis
Dr. Ernesto Zamora Ramos
Dr. Sarah Harris
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Drones is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• efficient motor-propeller design for long endurance
• aircraft design and material selection
• efficient aircraft building methods
• avionics
• communication systems
• sensors
• UAV design for forest fire prevention