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Drones
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Advances in Civil Applications of Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Third Edition
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Advances in Civil Applications of Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Third Edition

A special issue of Drones (ISSN 2504-446X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 3 August 2026 | Viewed by 2096

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Higinio González-Jorge

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Aerolab, Institute of Physics, Computer and Aerospace Science, Universidade de Vigo, Campus As Lagoas, 32004 Ourense, Spain
Interests: infrastructure maintenance; NDT; UAV; geospatial technology
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Fernando Veiga López

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Aerolab/IFCAE, University of Vigo, 32004 Ourense, Spain
Interests: 3D urban modelling; computational fluid dynamics; unmanned aerial vehicles
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Enrique Aldao Pensado

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Aerospace & Transportation Systems Laboratory (AEROLAB), School of Aerospace Engineering, University of Vigo, Vigo, Spain
Interests: drones; navigation systems; artificial intelligence

Special Issue Information

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.

Keywords

  • drones
  • surveying
  • unmanned aircraft systems
  • regulations
  • swarm
  • photogrammetry
  • remote sensing
  • earth observation
  • guidance, navigation, and control
  • aerodynamics

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Related Special Issues

Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

41 pages, 8925 KB  
Article
Optimizing UAV Flight Parameters for Linear Infrastructure Pathology Detection: Assessing Smart Oblique Capture
by Jingwei Liu, José Lemus-Romani, Eduardo J. Rueda, Esteban González-Rauter and Marcelo Becerra-Rozas
Drones 2026, 10(5), 324; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones10050324 - 25 Apr 2026
Viewed by 447
Abstract
The rapid deterioration of road infrastructure requires accurate and efficient methods for detecting pavement distresses. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as a reliable alternative to conventional inspection techniques, enabling high-resolution data acquisition and improved operational safety. This study investigates the application of [...] Read more.
The rapid deterioration of road infrastructure requires accurate and efficient methods for detecting pavement distresses. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have emerged as a reliable alternative to conventional inspection techniques, enabling high-resolution data acquisition and improved operational safety. This study investigates the application of the Smart Oblique Capture (SOC) technique for pavement inspection through a systematic calibration of UAV flight parameters, including Ground Sample Distance (GSD), frontal and lateral overlap, camera tilt angle, and flight pattern. A structured experimental campaign was conducted, comprising 135 parameter combinations evaluated across three independent scenarios, resulting in a total of 405 UAV flights. The analysis focused on assessing the impact of these parameters on the visual quality of two-dimensional pavement reconstructions and processing efficiency. The results show that a configuration consisting of a 0.5 cm/pixel GSD, 70% frontal overlap, 80% lateral overlap, and a 70° camera tilt angle achieves the best balance between reconstruction quality and computational cost. Furthermore, the findings indicate that Smart Oblique Capture does not provide a statistically significant improvement in reconstruction quality for linear infrastructure compared to conventional oblique configurations, despite requiring a higher number of images and longer processing times. Overall, the results demonstrate that flight parameter calibration plays a more critical role than the adoption of advanced acquisition strategies such as Smart Oblique Capture. This study provides practical and reproducible guidelines for UAV-based pavement inspection, supporting efficient data acquisition while minimizing redundant information and unnecessary computational costs in infrastructure monitoring workflows. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Civil Applications of Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Third Edition)
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18 pages, 5905 KB  
Article
A Method of Deep Mineralization Potential Exploration Based on UAVs and Its Application in an Abandoned Mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
by Xin Wu, Guoqiang Xue, Yufei Gao, Yanbo Wang, Yefei Li, Zhaoming Qian, Yusuo Zhao, Junjie Xue, Song Cui and Nannan Zhou
Drones 2026, 10(4), 293; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones10040293 - 16 Apr 2026
Viewed by 273
Abstract
In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have increasingly become carrying platforms for Earth observation systems equipped with optical, microwave, and other types of sensors, primarily enabling high-resolution observations of above-ground targets. With the development of geophysical methods, bulky instruments originally designed for [...] Read more.
In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have increasingly become carrying platforms for Earth observation systems equipped with optical, microwave, and other types of sensors, primarily enabling high-resolution observations of above-ground targets. With the development of geophysical methods, bulky instruments originally designed for deep subsurface detection have been progressively miniaturized and made more lightweight, allowing their integration with civilian UAVs and opening new technological avenues for subsurface investigation. We have developed a semi-airborne transient electromagnetic system based on a UAV that is capable of simultaneously obtaining underground resistivity and polarization rate parameters. A survey was conducted over the M’sesa mining area in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is a mine pit that has been abandoned for over 50 years and has been flooded to form a lake, making it difficult to detect its deep mineralization potential using traditional ground-based methods. The results clearly delineate the spatial distribution of the Shangoluwe–M’sesa compressional fault and reveal a deep low-resistivity and high-chargeability zone, which provides clues for the exploration of deep deposits. This study will be of significant importance for accelerating the promotion and application of UAV-based semi-airborne electromagnetic exploration technologies. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Civil Applications of Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Third Edition)
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24 pages, 1738 KB  
Article
Design and Analysis of k-Connectivity Restoration Algorithms for Fault-Tolerant Drone Swarms in Harsh Civil Environments
by Orhan Ceylan, Zuleyha Akusta Dagdeviren, Moharram Challenger and Orhan Dagdeviren
Drones 2026, 10(1), 16; https://doi.org/10.3390/drones10010016 - 28 Dec 2025
Viewed by 956
Abstract
Drone swarms are increasingly used in critical civil applications like agriculture, machine maintenance and search-and-rescue, where maintaining network connectivity is essential for effective coordination. However, harsh environmental conditions can lead to drone failures, risking network fragmentation. To improve resilience, designing k-connected networks, [...] Read more.
Drone swarms are increasingly used in critical civil applications like agriculture, machine maintenance and search-and-rescue, where maintaining network connectivity is essential for effective coordination. However, harsh environmental conditions can lead to drone failures, risking network fragmentation. To improve resilience, designing k-connected networks, where up to k−1 drone failures can be tolerated without losing connectivity, offers a practical solution by providing multiple independent communication paths between drones. The k-connectivity restoration problem is repositioning drones to achieve k-connectivity with minimal movement. In this study, we address this NP-Hard problem and propose novel solutions. Unlike existing k-connectivity restoration algorithms that constrain drones to predefined points, our model allows free repositioning within the mission area, increasing flexibility but also expanding the solution space and complexity. To address this problem, we propose three center-based algorithms that guide drones toward different central points computed from the network layout: in the first algorithm (ORIGIN), the center point is the geometric origin of the mission area; in the second algorithm (CENTROID), nodes move toward the centroid of all drone positions; and in the third algorithm, the center position is defined as the CENTer of the FARthest nodes (CENTFAR). We also introduce a Minimum Spanning Tree-based (MST) algorithm that moves drones along a minimum spanning tree to achieve and theoretically guarantee k-connectivity. Besides checking k-connectivity after each individual move, we also develop group-based variants where all drones move simultaneously and k-connectivity is checked afterward. We conduct comprehensive simulations under varying drone counts, network sizes, k values, and transmission ranges to evaluate the effectiveness and scalability of the proposed algorithms. CENTFAR provides the best movement efficiency among the center-based algorithms, slightly outperforming CENTROID and ORIGIN and achieving up to 21% lower total and 29% lower maximum movement than MST in smaller areas and higher k values. MST, however, performs best under low k and high transmission ranges, offering up to 57% lower total movement and 20% lower execution time than CENTFAR. Group-based variants accelerate convergence (up to a tenfold speedup) at the cost of a slight increase in movement. Our findings reveal that MST is ideal for low-k settings, while CENTFAR is better suited for high-connectivity deployments. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Civil Applications of Unmanned Aircraft Systems: Third Edition)
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