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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 708

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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Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

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 515
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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