Announcements

We are pleased to announce that four active Editorial Board Members were promoted to Associate Editors for the Drones (ISSN: 2504-446X)!

Prof. Dr. Xiwang Dong (Beihang University, China);

Prof. Dr. Xiwang Dong received his Ph.D. in engineering from the Department of Automation at Tsinghua University, China, in 2014. From December 2014 to December 2015, he worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. From July 2014 to July 2021, he served as a Lecturer, Associate Professor, Professor, Doctoral Supervisor, and Assistant to the Dean of the School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering at Beihang University, China. From July 2021 to December 2023, he served as the deputy dean of the Institute of Artificial Intelligence at Beihang University. From January 2024 to date, he has served as the Dean of the Institute of Unmanned Systems at Beihang University.

Prof. Dr. Petros S. Bithas (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA), Greece)

Prof. Dr. Petros S. Bithas received a B.S. in electrical engineering from the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the University of Patras, Greece, in 2003. From the same department, he received a Ph.D. degree with specialization in “Wireless Communication Systems” in 2009. Between 2004 and 2009, he was a research assistant at the Institute for Space Applications and Remote Sensing (ISARS) of the National Observatory of Athens (NOA), Greece. At ISARS, he has participated in various Research and Development (R&D) projects, including the Advanced Telematic Systems for Vehicles funded by the General Secretariat for Research and Technology and the European Network of Excellence for Satellite Communications (SatNEx phase I and II) funded by the European Commission. Furthermore, from 2010 to 2013, he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Digital Systems, University of Piraeus, Greece, where he was involved in EXALTED (EXpAnding LTE for Devices), an Integrating Project (IP) of the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7). Since October 2009, he has been affiliated with the Department of Εlectronics Engineering of the Technological Educational Institute of Piraeus as a Lab Instructor. He is currently a research associate at the Institute for Astronomy, Astrophysics, Space Applications, and Remote Sensing (IAASARS) of the NOA, Greece.

Prof. Dr. Andrey V. Savkin (University of New South Wales, Australia);

Prof. Dr. Andrey V. Savkin is the Head of Systems and control at the School of Electrical Engineering and Telecommunications, University of New South Wales. He received an M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Leningrad State University. His current research areas include the Deployment and Navigation of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), Navigation and Control of Mobile Robots, State Estimation and Control in Wireless Communication Networks, Control of Battery Energy Storage Systems, Control of Wind Power Systems, Robust Control and Filtering, Application of Modern Control, and Signal Processing Techniques to Biomedical Engineering and Medicine.

Prof. Dr. Oleg Yakimenko (Naval Postgraduate School, USA).

Prof. Dr. Oleg Yakimenko is a Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Systems Engineering Department of NPS, USA. He also serves as the NPS Director of UAS Research Activities. His expertise includes modeling, guidance, navigation, and control of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles, guided weapons, parachutes, and spacecraft. He is an author and co-author of over three hundred publications, including books and patents. He is an AIAA Fellow (based on a document published on 15 May 2023).

We wish them every success in further developing the journal.

Further details about the Editorial Board Members can be found at https://www.mdpi.com/journal/drones/editors.