Aerial Robotics and Vehicles: Control and Mechanical Design

Dear Colleagues,

Aerial robotics has been an active area of research for several decades. The development of sophisticated auto-pilot systems for manned and unmanned vehicles, intelligent autonomous navigation systems, novel materials and microelectromechanical systems for biomimetic aerial robots and aerial manipulators have seen a large range of applications.

The advantages of modern embedded computing, accurate GPS positioning, low-cost sensors, and low-cost lightweight aerial vehicles have increased the number of applications in aerial robotics.

Aerial robotic vehicles have complex and sometimes partially known dynamic models. Moreover, the design and control of these systems may be challenging if the available sensors are inefficient.

Sophisticated control and estimation techniques commonly arise from prototype-specific requirements and constraints. For example, efficient control and estimation techniques should deal with the highly nonlinear dynamic model of vehicles. They should also ensure stability under the conditions of a dynamically changing environment. The literature shows that robust and nonlinear control and estimation algorithms can significantly improve the performance of aerial robotic systems.

Aerial robotics has diverse areas of development; for example, aerial manipulation is one of the main areas of opportunity in this field. It aims to combine the versatility and agility of some aerial platforms with the manipulation capabilities of a robotic manipulator arm. In addition, biological inspiration has also enriched the field of aerial robotics. Flight principles encountered in birds and insects have motivated the design and development of estimation and control strategies, as well as of sensing, actuation, and even motor driving mechanisms.

The main goal of this Special Issue is to collect recent results on aerial robotics, especially those that are concerned with practical and theoretical problems, efficient implementations in applications, as well as novel designs whose advantages can be proven by simulations.

The topics of this Special Issue cover a wide range of important applications in aerial robotics, such as:

• Modeling;
• Control design;
• Attitude estimation;
• Visual feedback;
• Real-time embedded system;
• Practical challenges in implementation;
• Aerial manipulation;
• Mechanical design;
• Bio-inspired aerial robot;
• Mathematical modeling;
• Simulation.

Prof. Dr. Javier Moreno-Valenzuela
Dr. Luis Rodolfo Garcia Carrillo
Prof. Dr. Alejandro Enrique Dzul López
Guest Editors

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