Advances in Civil Applications of Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Third Edition

Dear Colleagues,

Over the past decande, drones have emerged as a fundamental tool in various civil applications, including the inspection of complex structures such as viaducts or wind turbines, professional image and video operations, the monitoring of agricultural fields and forest masses, controlling pollution in bodies of water, serving as logistical tools in remote locations, enabling topographical operations, and contributing to search and rescue missions. There are a multitude of aircraft designs, including fixed-wing or rotary-wing models, as well as various types of payloads, propulsion systems, etc. Additionally, there are many instances where unmanned aircraft collaborate with other aircraft, swarms, or other unmanned vehicles, whether they be land- or sea-based. The regulatory aspects and their evolution over the recent years have also proven to be crucial in this context, accompanying the development of the sector.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research articles and review papers) to generate insights on an array of applications across a broad spectrum of unmanned aicraft in the civil sector. This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that examine the following themes:

- Drone applications in infrastructure monitoring;

- Drone design, aerodynamics, propulsion, payloads, guidance, navigation, and control;

- Drone applications in agriculture management;

- Drone applications in marine environments;

- Drone applications in forestry management;

- Drone applications in surveying;

- Drones in logistics;

- Drone regulation;

- Drone swarms;

- Drones working in collaboration with sea-based and land-based unmanned systems;

- Drone mitigation from the civil sector (e.g., critical infrastructure such as airports);

- Drones in education.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Higinio González Jorge
Dr. Fernando Veiga López
Dr. Enrique Aldao Pensado
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-blind 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.