Robotics and AI: Planning, Control, and Applications

Dear Colleagues,

The field of robotics has been closely tied to advances in artificial intelligence. Techniques such as machine learning, deep reinforcement learning, and computer vision now allow robots to handle tasks that once required fully manual programming or were simply not feasible. At the same time, classical problems in robotics, including building accurate models, generating efficient motion plans, and designing controllers that work reliably when conditions change, remain far from solved and continue to attract significant research attention.

Recent years have seen growing interest in combining AI methods with established approaches in modeling, planning, and control. For example, learning-based methods have been used to compensate for unmodeled dynamics, data-driven planners have been developed for high-dimensional configuration spaces, and hybrid control architectures have been proposed to improve adaptability in real-world settings. These efforts span multiple disciplines, from mechanical engineering and control theory to computer science.

This Special Issue aims to bring together contributions that address the interplay between robotics and AI, with a focus on practical modeling, planning, and control problems. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Kinematic and dynamic modeling of robotic systems;
• AI-based perception, learning, and decision-making;
• Motion planning and trajectory optimization;
• Advanced control strategies for robotic applications;
• Sim-to-real transfer and digital twins;
• Multi-robot coordination;
• Human–robot interaction and collaboration;
• Applications involving industrial, medical, mobile, aerial, and service robots.

We welcome both theoretical and experimental work.

Dr. Yi Fang
Dr. Yuxin Sun
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Publisher’s Notice

At the request of Dr. Dongfang Liu, a member of the original Guest Editor team for the Special Issue, he will no longer be involved in the editorial handling of the Special Issue as of 24 August 2026. This change has been agreed upon by the remaining Guest Editors and the Editorial Office, and the Special Issue website has been updated accordingly. The Special Issue will continue to be handled by the remaining Guest Editors in accordance with MDPI’s Special Issue and editorial policies.

At the request of the Guest Editors, this Special Issue has been closed ahead of the originally planned submission deadline. The deadline has been updated accordingly, and no further submissions will be accepted