AI-Driven Vision and Edge Intelligence for UAV Inspection in Industrial and Real-World Environments

Dear Colleagues,

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have rapidly evolved from simple remote sensing tools into intelligent systems capable of performing complex inspection, monitoring, and decision-making tasks. Recent advances in artificial intelligence, particularly in deep learning, vision transformers, real-time object detection (e.g., YOLO), and edge computing, have significantly improved the perception and autonomy of these systems.

Although industrial environments remain a central application area, UAVs are increasingly being used in a wide range of real-world scenarios, including agriculture, infrastructure inspection, environmental monitoring, and emergency response. Despite their diversity, these applications share common challenges, such as operating in GPS-denied environments, dealing with dynamic conditions, and ensuring reliable performance under strict real-time constraints.

To address these challenges, it is essential to combine robust computer vision, multi-sensor data fusion, and edge AI within integrated cyber-physical systems capable of supporting autonomous and adaptive UAV operations.

This Special Issue aims to gather high-quality research and review papers focused on AI-driven perception, navigation, control, and embedded intelligence for UAV systems, particularly in inspection and monitoring applications. The topic aligns well with the scope of Drones, covering key aspects such as UAV autonomy, sensing technologies, real-time processing, and application-driven aerial systems.

We especially welcome contributions that demonstrate practical validation, system-level integration, and real-world applicability, helping to bridge the gap between theoretical developments and operational deployment.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Filipe Pereira
Prof. Dr. Joaquim Gabriel Mendes
Dr. Pedro Sousa
Dr. António Ramos Silva
Dr. Higinio González-Jorge
Dr. Pedro Arias-Perez
Guest Editors

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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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-anonymized peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Drones 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 2600 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.