Remote Sensing Techniques and Applications in Planetary Rover Exploration

Dear Colleagues,

Remote sensing techniques play a crucial and indispensable role in the exploration of planetary rovers, enabling scientists to gather invaluable information about distant celestial bodies such as Lunar, Mars and asteroids. These rovers serve as essential tools for conducting scientific investigations and collecting data in challenging and unfamiliar extraterrestrial environments. By employing remote sensing techniques, which involve the acquisition and analysis of remote images and data, researchers gain vital guidance and insights for successful rover missions. The utilization of high-resolution images and diverse datasets through remote sensing technology provides a comprehensive description and analysis of the planetary surface’s environment. This wealth of information guides rover navigation, facilitates the discovery of geological features, enhances our understanding of planetary geology, climate, and hydrology, and lays the foundation for future human exploration. As technology continues to advance, remote sensing techniques will remain pivotal in planetary exploration, enabling us to delve deeper into the enigmatic mysteries of our solar system. The objective of the present Special Issue is to cover the relevant topics, trends and best practices regarding algorithms, models, analyses and applications in the field. We welcome topics that include, but are not limited to the following:

• Planetary geomorphologic mapping;
• Planetary photogrammetric remote sensing;
• Planetary spectroscopic remote sensing;
• Remote sensing methods, data calibration and validation;
• Recent and future planetary exploration missions;
• Landing sites studies;
• Rover localization and navigation;
• 3D terrain reconstruction;
• Deep learning techniques in deep space explorations.

Dr. Xiong Xu
Dr. Xun Geng
Dr. Youqing Ma
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. Remote Sensing is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2700 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.

• planetary photogrammetry
• planetary remote sensing
• planetary terrain reconstruction
• planetary rover navigation and path planning
• planetary optical data processing
• planetary SAR data processing
• planetary laser altimeter data processing
• planetary image matching