Advances in Dynamics and Motion Control of Unmanned Aerial/Underwater/Ground Vehicles—2nd Edition

A special issue of Actuators (ISSN 2076-0825). This special issue belongs to the section "Actuators for Surface Vehicles".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 October 2025 | Viewed by 391

Special Issue Editor


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Dankook University, Yongin-si, Republic of Korea
Interests: control engineering; autonomous driving vehicles; unmanned aerial vehicles; artificial intelligence
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Currently, the design of unmanned vehicles is a prominent topic of investigation, with a large range of applications such as civil and military activities, agriculture, transport, delivery operations, and surveillance.

For example, remotely operated or autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have been used in recent military operations around the world; unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), the most well known of which are remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), can also be applied in several commercial field operations, e.g., oil and gas extraction in ultra-deep waters.

Unmanned vehicles are being developed to operate in various environments, including in the air, with UAVs; underwater, with UUVs or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs); and on the ground, with unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs).

Dynamics and motion control techniques are very important for the design and construction of efficient vehicle systems to enhance safety and reliability. This Special Issue will deal with novel schemes for dynamics analysis and control techniques for aerial, underwater, and ground vehicle systems. We will discuss the recent advances and future challenges associated with the design issues of unmanned vehicles. The topics of interest within the scope of this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Vehicle control;
  • Kinematics and vehicle dynamics;
  • Path planning and collision avoidance;
  • Sensor and actuator systems;
  • Steering, brakes, dampers, and electronic control units;
  • Fault detection and fault-tolerant control;
  • Electric vehicles, intelligent vehicles, and autonomous vehicles;
  • Trajectory control;
  • Flight dynamics and control;
  • Linear and nonlinear control synthesis;
  • Attitude dynamics and stabilization.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Han Sol Kim
Guest Editor

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. Actuators 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 2400 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.

Keywords

  • unmanned vehicle
  • vehicle dynamic modeling and control
  • remotely operated vehicle
  • unnamed aerial vehicle
  • actuator and sensor faults

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • e-Book format: Special Issues with more than 10 articles can be published as dedicated e-books, ensuring wide and rapid dissemination.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Related Special Issue

Published Papers (1 paper)

Order results
Result details
Select all
Export citation of selected articles as:

Research

22 pages, 1086 KiB  
Article
Design of Experiments Approach for Structural Optimization of Urban Air Mobility Vehicles
by Marco Claudio De Simone, Salvio Veneziano, Alessia Porcaro and Domenico Guida
Actuators 2025, 14(4), 176; https://doi.org/10.3390/act14040176 - 3 Apr 2025
Viewed by 268
Abstract
The current global context demands the development of new solutions that prioritize energy efficiency, time optimization, safety, and sustainability. Urban transportation is one of the sectors undergoing significant transformation. Pursuing new urban transportation solutions has become increasingly intense, involving research institutions and companies. [...] Read more.
The current global context demands the development of new solutions that prioritize energy efficiency, time optimization, safety, and sustainability. Urban transportation is one of the sectors undergoing significant transformation. Pursuing new urban transportation solutions has become increasingly intense, involving research institutions and companies. Considering this context, this study focused on the optimization procedures for designing a new vehicle capable of vertical take-off for urban air mobility applications. This paper reports on the optimization process of a thruster deployment mechanism using statistical techniques. In particular, the authors tested the use of Design of Experiments (DOE) techniques for the optimal design of a structural component of a new vehicle for urban mobility purposes under development at the Applied Mechanics laboratory of the Department of Industrial Engineering of the University of Salerno. For this reason, it was decided that a parametric multibody model would be developed in the Simscape Multibody environment for structural optimization using designed experiment plans to “guide” the designer in the analysis phase and search for an optimal configuration using a minimum number of configurations. Finally, employing FEM analysis, the chosen configuration was validated. This study allowed us to test the use of DOE techniques to design new systems. It allowed us to evaluate different configurations, the static and dynamic behavior, the constraining reactions present in the joints, and the active forces and torques of the actuators, highlighting the correlation between factors that can guide the designer in identifying optimal solutions. Full article
Show Figures

Figure 1

Back to TopTop