Sensors and Carriers for Monitoring Operations at Sea and on Ground

This Special Issue wants to provide a general framework over applications that see sensors as the key elements for the motion control of autonomous vehicles and drones. Although these applications have achieved remarkable advances in recent years, the request of highly reliable technologies for motion control, compactness for onboard installation, and low impact on energy consumption are drawing new boundaries and horizons. Besides, the improvement in obstacle avoidance appears as an essential element to make the critical step forward towards real unmanned land, air, and marine vehicles, as well as autonomous ships with a high degree of autonomy.

A focus is proposed toward those sensors aimed at being installed on board of autonomous vehicles and drones. Accordingly, the attention should first be put on the development of new ad hoc sensors intended for overall motion control as well as vehicle asset control and obstacle avoidance. Sensors devoted to path following are also included in this framework, in order to perform operations such as adaptive sampling, monitoring, target tracking, and gradients detection—that is, designed to monitor the surrounding environment (of any nature) in order to define a trajectory to chase. For this application, it is necessary to develop a mechanism that would increase the adaptability of the system to the surrounding environment, in order to avoid jeopardizing the mission. Thus, a recording activity of all environmental parameters should be carried, along with mechanisms to blend in the environment. Sensors producing FAIR data (which meet the principles of findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability) could also be introduced in the system. Moreover, one must consider that, more than an overlook over the carrying vehicles, such complex applications require a network of sensors. It is then appropriate to define at least the guidelines on data analysis techniques and real-time processing, fundamental also for navigation purposes, given the different nature of the signals generated by the sensors.

You may choose our Joint Special Issue in Machines.

Prof. Federica Mezzani
Guest Editor

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• smart sensors
• remote sensing
• autonomous vehicle
• drone
• path following
• tracking
• environment monitoring
• adaptive sampling