Drone Design and Development
A section of Drones (ISSN 2504-446X).
Section Information
This Section focuses on Drone Design and Development. This includes research efforts related to the modeling, flight dynamics, design, mission, and manufacturing of various sizes of drones, such as unmanned air vehicles (UAV), micro-unmanned air vehicles (μUAV), micro air vehicles (MAV), and nano air vehicles (NAV). Additionally, different types of drones, including fixed-wing, rotary-wing, and flapping-wing systems, are targeted in this Section. Furthermore, various environments where drones can be deployed are considered, such as aerial, underwater, marine, and space. Modeling, analysis, and discussions on the bioinspiration and biomimicry side of drones are also appreciated in order to better understand the locomotion of biological systems and their effectiveness. To reach optimal efficiency and endurance, aerodynamic, structural, fluid–structure interaction modeling should be performed analytically, numerically, or experimentally. This Section is established to introduce new concepts, modeling and control strategies, and effective designs of drones in addition to understanding all the relevant aspects of drone development, stability, and manufacturing. The scope of this Section is to publish articles on the current state-of-the-art research, recent research, and future directions for drone design and development.
Keywords
- UAV/ μUAV/MAV/NAV
- Fixed-wing/rotary-wing/flapping-wing drones
- Space/marine/aerial/underwater drones
- Novel bio-inspired drone design and development
- Soft robotics and multimodal locomotion
- Bioinspiration and biomimicry
- Fluid–structure interaction/aeroelasticity/hydroelasticity
- Nonlinear flight dynamics and control
- Optimal and effective design
- Drone development, stability, and manufacturing
- Actuation mechanism design
Editorial Board
Topical Advisory Panel
Special Issues
Following special issues within this section are currently open for submissions:
- Design and Flight Control of Low-Speed Near-Space Unmanned Systems (Deadline: 13 February 2026)
- AI-Assisted Control Strategies and Their Applications to the Stabilization, Guidance and Navigation of Drones (Deadline: 20 March 2026)
- Recent Development in Drones Icing (Deadline: 20 March 2026)
- Swarm Intelligence-Inspired Planning and Control for Drones (Deadline: 31 March 2026)
- Intelligent Control and Optimization of Electric Vertical Take-Off and Landing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Deadline: 31 March 2026)
- From Nature to Flight: Bio-Inspired UAV Design and Intelligence (Deadline: 15 April 2026)
- Mission Planning, Perception and Control for Drones in Wide-Area Operations (Deadline: 17 April 2026)
- Advanced Flight Dynamics and Decision-Making for UAV Operations (Deadline: 31 May 2026)
- Dynamics Modeling and Conceptual Design of UAVs—2nd Edition (Deadline: 18 June 2026)
- Advances in Intelligent Coordination Control for Autonomous UUVs (Deadline: 25 June 2026)
- The Conceptual Design Methodology for UAV: New Research and New Development (2nd Edition) (Deadline: 26 June 2026)
- Autonomous Drone Navigation in GPS-Denied Environments (Deadline: 30 June 2026)
- Wearable Technologies for Driving Drones: Innovations and Applications (Deadline: 31 July 2026)
- Hydrogen and Hybrid Propulsion Systems for UAV Applications (Deadline: 31 August 2026)
