Bio-Inspired Design and Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue, entitled "Bio-Inspired Design and Control of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)" addresses a research field in robotics and automation that has become invariably significant in recent years. Leveraging nature's ingenious designs, inspiration is drawn in order to enhance the capabilities of UAVs and push the boundaries of not only flight dynamics, but also of autonomy, resilience, and versatility.

As modern biological research reveals more about the intricate mechanisms of living creatures, these findings provide a wealth of new opportunities that are ripe for transposing to Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. This can be seen in the structural configuration of UAVs, inspired by the wings of birds or insects, the sensory capabilities of UAVs, mimicking the vision or echolocation systems of animals, or even the control algorithms of UAVs, based on brain-like decision-making processes. More specifically, a fervent development is occuring in the design of flapping wing machines modeled on the physical attributes of bats and birds, the design of swarm control algorithms modeled on biological swarms, the design of artificial neural network control methods modeled on human brain computation, and the design of evolutionary optimization methods modeled on the laws of evolution in nature.

Naturally evolved systems and organisms have provided numerous breakthroughs in the field of UAV design, giving birth to bio-inspired drones that are capable of incredible flight performance, robust navigation, and strikingly intelligent behavior. This Special Issue welcomes the contributions of scholars to share their latest research outputs in the bio-inspired design and control of UAVs.

Prof. Dr. Yaoming Zhou
Guest Editor

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