Remote Sensing and Industry 4.0 for Cultural Heritage and Archaeological Landscapes Applications

Dear Colleagues,

We are pleased to announce a Special Issue on ‘Remote Sensing and Industry 4.0 for Cultural Heritage and Archaeological Landscapes Applications’ and invite you to contribute your valuable research to this exciting compilation.

Cultural heritage and archaeological landscapes represent invaluable treasures of human history, offering profound insights into our past, societal development, and cultural richness. Preserving and understanding these heritage sites is crucial for fostering a connection with our roots and ensuring the transmission of knowledge to future generations. Remote sensing technologies, coupled with technologies from industry 4.0 (internet of things, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality), have emerged as indispensable tools in unravelling the mysteries of cultural heritage and archaeological landscapes. By employing a variety of sensing modalities, including satellite imagery, LiDAR (light detection and ranging), and aerial photography, remote sensing provides a non-intrusive means to explore, document, and analyse these sites with unprecedented precision and efficiency.

This Special Issue invites contributions that showcase the latest developments, methodologies, and case studies on the use of remote sensing and industrial technologies for cultural heritage and archaeological landscape applications. We invite researchers to submit high-quality papers that contribute to the collective effort of preserving, understanding, and celebrating our cultural heritage through the lens of cutting-edge remote sensing technologies. One or more of the following topics should be addressed in the proposed submissions:

• Digital twins and their role in enhancing cultural heritage preservation;
• High-resolution and time-series satellite imagery for cultural heritage site documentation, change detection, and site evolution control;
• Industry 4.0 applications in the preservation and analysis of cultural heritage;
• IoT applications for the monitoring and safeguarding archaeological sites;
• Hyperspectral imaging and advanced imaging techniques;
• Digital archives of remote sensing data for cultural heritage preservation;
• Artificial intelligence for site classification and forecasting and automated change detection or recognition of archaeological and architectural features;
• LiDAR-based mapping for comprehensive archaeological landscape analysis;
• Airborne technologies for hidden structures and features identification in challenging terrains;
• Combination of remote sensing data with BIM and GIS;
• Geomatics approaches for assessing, safeguarding, and sustaining cultural heritage, and developing historic building information models (HBIM);
• Identification of potential threats to cultural heritage sites from continuous monitoring;
• Ethical considerations in the use of remote sensing technologies in cultural heritage contexts.

We look forward to receiving your contributions and showcasing the impactful intersection of remote sensing and industrial technologies in preserving and understanding our cultural heritage.

Dr. Valeria Croce
Dr. Gabriella Caroti
Dr. Andrea Piemonte
Prof. Dr. Philippe Véron
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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-anonymized 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.