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Drones publishes Special Issues to create collections of papers on specific topics, with the aim of building a community of authors and readers to discuss the latest research and develop new ideas and research directions. Special Issues are led by Guest Editors, who are experts on the topic and all Special Issue submissions follow MDPI's standard editorial process. The journal’s Editor-in-Chief and/or designated Editorial Board Member will oversee Guest Editor appointments and Special Issue proposals, checking their content for relevance and ensuring the suitability of the material for the journal. The papers published in a Special Issue will be collected and displayed on a dedicated page of the journal’s website. Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies and Guest Editor responsibilities can be found here. For any inquiries related to a Special Issue, please contact the Editorial Office.

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Advances of UAV in Precision Agriculture—2nd Edition

edited by

Jian Chen

Yangquan Chen

Yanbo Huang

and Dongbing Gu

submission deadline 25 Sep 2025 | 4 articles | Viewed by 2177 | Submission Open

Keywords: agricultural UAV; guidance; navigation and control; SLAM; swarm intelligence; remote sensing; crop phenotype awareness; crop and/or water stress assessment; drones for agricultural applications; drones for precision agriculture; precision viticulture

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Agriculture and Forestry)

Electric-Powered and Hybrid-Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Technology and Applications of Low Altitude Aviation

edited by Wenbiao Gan, Zhou Zhou,

Saddam Aziz

and

Ilias Panagiotopoulos

submission deadline 30 Sep 2025 | 6 articles | Viewed by 3516 | Submission Open

Keywords: electric-powered aircraft; distributed power; UAV; optimization design; aerodynamics; artificial intelligence; green aviation; urban air mobility and delivery; low altitude economy

(This special issue belongs to the Section Innovative Urban Mobility)

Urban Air Mobility Solutions: UAVs for Smarter Cities

edited by

Sarah Hubbard

Damon Lercel

and

Cheng Wang

submission deadline 30 Sep 2025 | Viewed by 48 | Submission Open

Keywords: UAM; UAV; smart cities; infrastructure; safety; funding; public policy; urban planning; emergency response; workforce

(This special issue belongs to the Section Innovative Urban Mobility)

Digital Twins and Extended Reality: Opportunities and Challenges of Integrated Applications (2nd Edition)

edited by Daniela Oreni,

Fabrizio Banfi

and Davide Mezzino

submission deadline 10 Oct 2025 | 3 articles | Viewed by 1897 | Submission Open

Keywords: UAVs digital twin XR-MR-AR-VR scan-to-BIM— BIM projects; HBIM projects; BIM-to-FEA; CoSim; BEM; InfraBIM conservation; management and dissemination of cultural built heritage fault diagnosis energy; structural analysis; and costs evaluation virtual museum; virtual– visual storytelling drone-based and drone-supported solutions

Visual Language Models and Large Language Models for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

edited by

Carlos Tavares Calafate

I. de Zarzà

and

Joaquim de Curtò i Díaz

submission deadline 16 Oct 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 2716 | Submission Open

Keywords: large language models; visual language models; unmanned aerial vehicles; autonomous navigation; few-shot learning; intelligent UAV systems

Implementation of UAV Systems for Cultural Heritage

edited by

Luis Javier Sánchez Aparicio

Efstratios Stylianidis

Serafin López-Cuervo Medina

Tomas Ramón Herrero-Tejedor

and Julian Aguirre de Mata

submission deadline 20 Oct 2025 | Viewed by 797 | Submission Open

Keywords: cultural heritage; heritage documentation; drones; 3D point clouds; structure from motion; laser scanning; multispectral imaging

When Deep Learning Meets Geometry for Air-to-Ground Perception on Drones: 2nd Edition

edited by

Dongdong Li

, Yangliu Kuai, Hongqi Fan and Gongjian Wen

submission deadline 23 Oct 2025 | Viewed by 41 | Submission Open

Keywords: object detection ; object tracking ; object localization ; object segmentation ; vision foundation models ; multimodal data processing

Recent Developments in Artificial Intelligence and Interdisciplinary Research for UAV Application

edited by Haokui Zhang, Liang Wang, Jingtao Sun and Xizhe Xue

submission deadline 25 Oct 2025 | Viewed by 337 | Submission Open

Keywords: UAV platform; image processing; large language model; visual language model; UAV communication; UAVs in socio-economic development

UAVs for Nature Conservation Tasks in Complex Environments

edited by Tom Richardson, Ulrik Pagh Schultz Lundquist and

Fabio Remondino

submission deadline 31 Oct 2025 | Viewed by 581 | Submission Open

Keywords: UAV/MAV; perception; collaborative; wildlife; complex environments; navigation; mapping; real-time

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Ecology)

Advances in UAV-Based Remote Sensing for Climate-Smart Agriculture

edited by Hongquan Wang,

Taifeng Dong

and

Liming He

submission deadline 31 Oct 2025 | Viewed by 31 | Submission Open

Keywords: unmanned aerial vehicles; remote sensing; climate-smart agriculture; crop phenotyping; precision agriculture

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Agriculture and Forestry)

IoT-Enabled UAV Networks for Secure Communication

edited by Bing Chen,

Changyan Yi

Kun Zhu

, Yutao Jiao and Zhiyi Tian

submission deadline 6 Nov 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 774 | Submission Open

Keywords: Internet of Things (IoT); unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV); flying ad hoc networks (FANET); drones; ground control station (GCS)

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)

Advances in Civil Applications of Unmanned Aircraft Systems: 2nd Edition

edited by

Higinio González Jorge

, Fernando Veiga López, Enrique Aldao Pensado and Gabriel Fontenla-Carrera

submission deadline 8 Nov 2025 | 8 articles | Viewed by 9534 | Submission Open

Keywords: drones; surveying; unmanned aircraft systems; regulations; swarm; photogrammetry; remote sensing; earth observation; guidance; navigation; and control; aerodynamics

Distributed Control, Optimization, and Game of UAV Swarm Systems (2nd Edition)

edited by Zhi Feng, Rui Yan,

Yishi Liu

, Xiaoduo Li and Qing Wang

submission deadline 10 Nov 2025 | 2 articles | Viewed by 2285 | Submission Open

Keywords: UAV swarm systems; distributed control; formation control; distributed optimization; intelligent motion planning; swarm game; distributed Nash equilibrium seeking

Advances in Intelligent Coordination Control for Autonomous UUVs

edited by Haitao Zhang, Bin-Bin Hu,

Zhenghong Jin

, Mingkang Long and Henglai Wei

submission deadline 10 Nov 2025 | 2 articles | Viewed by 1977 | Submission Open

Keywords: cooperative control; autonomous underwater unmanned vehicles; decision making; game theory; machine learning; control theory; distributed optimization; intelligent connected vehicles; vehicle dynamics control

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)

Wearable Technologies for Driving Drones: Innovations and Applications

edited by

Cristian Randieri

Andrea Tortorelli

and Bojan Jerbić

submission deadline 12 Nov 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 2118 | Submission Open

Keywords: wearable technology; drone control systems; human– drone interaction; bio-sensing; gesture recognition; haptic feedback; robotics; augmented reality (AR); virtual reality (VR); ergonomics in drone piloting

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)

Drone Communication, Networking, and Trajectory Control in Urban Environments

edited by

Endrowednes Kuantama

, Yu Zhang, Ningning Hou and Yimeng Feng

submission deadline 15 Nov 2025 | 4 articles | Viewed by 2904 | Submission Open

Keywords: drone communication and networking; multi-drone coordination; real-time data transmission; urban air traffic management; drone navigation; trajectory planning; sustainable urban transport; on-board AI processing; millimeter wave radar enabled drone navigation; drone remote sensing using millimeter wave radar; LoRa-assisted drone communication and networking; LoRa for long range drone applications; novel drone applications; drone assisted wireless communications for 5G and beyond; drone security; integrated sensing and communication drone networks; remote object detection from drone; urban computing

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)

Physical-Layer Security in Drone Communications—2nd Edition

edited by Dongming Li,

Dawei Wang

and Yi Lou

submission deadline 20 Nov 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 572 | Submission Open

Keywords: drone communications; physical-layer security; key generation; drone jitter; beamforming and jamming; trajectory planning

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)

Unmanned Aerial Manipulation with Physical Interaction

edited by Yushu Yu and Vincenzo Lippiello

submission deadline 20 Nov 2025 | Viewed by 349 | Submission Open

Keywords: unmanned aerial manipulation; cooperative unmanned aerial transportation; fully actuated unmanned aerial vehicle; interaction control; human– robot interaction; localization; reinforcement learning

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)

Advanced Flight Dynamics and Decision-Making for UAV Operations

edited by

Paraskevi Zacharia

Antreas Kantaros

, Elias K. Xidias and

Antoni Grau

submission deadline 20 Nov 2025 | Viewed by 9 | Submission Open

Keywords: UAV flight dynamics; autonomous control; decision-making; machine learning; reinforcement learning; neural networks; UAV simulation; swarm UAVs; 3D Printing; UAV design; additive manufacturing

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Design and Development)

Advances in the Use of UAVs for Monitoring and Analysis of Forage and Agricultural Crops: Technologies, Methods and Applications

edited by

Alexandre Maniçoba da Rosa Ferraz Jardim

and Luciana Sandra Bastos De Souza

submission deadline 21 Nov 2025 | 3 articles | Viewed by 9769 | Submission Open

Keywords: precision agriculture; forage crops; agricultural monitoring; image analysis; yield estimation; thermal imaging; machine learning; 3D modeling; data modeling

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Agriculture and Forestry)

Innovative Approaches to Biodiversity and Ecology Monitoring: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Drone Technology

edited by

Eben N. Broadbent

submission deadline 25 Nov 2025 | Viewed by 61 | Submission Open

Keywords: drone imagery; artificial intelligence; biodiversity monitoring; ecological assessment; remote sensing; machine learning; habitat mapping; species distribution; conservation technology; environmental change

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drones in Ecology)

Advances in Autonomous Underwater Drones: 2nd Edition

edited by Daxiong Ji,

Asiya Khan

, Dena Bazazian and Mohd Hisham Bin Nordin

submission deadline 25 Nov 2025 | Viewed by 26 | Submission Open

Keywords: autonomous underwater drones; AUV; control algorithms; navigation algorithms; driving mechanisms; design of drones

Advances in Guidance, Navigation, and Control

edited by

Haibin Duan

submission deadline 30 Nov 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 2130 | Submission Open

Keywords: guidance systems; navigation systems; control systems; unmanned systems

Drone-Enabled Smart Sensing: Challenges and Opportunities

edited by

Derek Hollenbeck

, Calvin Coopmans and

Shicheng Yan

submission deadline 5 Dec 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 488 | Submission Open

Keywords: digital twins; smart cities; machine learning; optimal sensor placement; modeling and control; environmental monitoring; precision agriculture; swarm coordination and control; real-time optimization; edge computing; internet of things

Advances in Internet of Drones: Applications, Communication Infrastructures, Architectures, and Protocols for FANETs

edited by

Wilfried Yves Hamilton Adoni

Richard Gloaguen

and Qi Lu

submission deadline 10 Dec 2025 | Viewed by 442 | Submission Open

Keywords: Internet of Drones; FANET; architecture; aerial wireless networks; drone communication; swarm communication

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)

Technologies and Applications of UAV Channel Models in Communications and Spectrum Awareness: 2nd Edition

edited by

Qiuming Zhu

César Briso-Rodríguez

Mou Chen

Zhenyu Na

and Kai Mao

submission deadline 10 Dec 2025 | Viewed by 62 | Submission Open

Keywords: UAV channel model; UAV channel sounding; UAV ISAC; UAV communication; UAV spectrum sensing; UAV trajectory planning

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)

AI for Cybersecurity in Unmanned Aerial Systems (UAS)

edited by

Hassan El Alami

, Neji Mensi and Fatima Salahdine

submission deadline 15 Dec 2025 | 1 articles | Viewed by 908 | Submission Open

Keywords: AI-based cybersecurity frameworks; UAS cybersecurity; advanced AI models; secure communication protocols; autonomous systems; data privacy

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)

Path Planning, Trajectory Tracking and Guidance for UAVs: 3rd Edition

edited by

and

submission deadline 15 Dec 2025 | Viewed by 63 | Submission Open

Keywords: path planning; trajectory tracking; guidance; navigation; and control; autonomous control; trajectory optimization; formation and reconfiguration

Flight Control and Collision Avoidance of UAVs: 2nd Edition

edited by Rodney Swee Huat Teo and

Sunan Huang

submission deadline 16 Dec 2025 | Viewed by 43 | Submission Open

Keywords: artificial intelligence; autonomous navigation; collision avoidance; guidance systems; computer vision; obstacle detection; decision making under uncertainty; safety verification; robust control; multi-object tracking and association; visual servoing; conflict prediction; conflict resolution; collision checking; risk assessment

Resilient Networking and Task Allocation for Drone Swarms: 2nd Edition

edited by

Jingjing Wang

Yibo Zhang

and

Qi Li

submission deadline 25 Dec 2025 | Viewed by 61 | Submission Open

Keywords: drone swarms; UAV ad hoc networks; swarm cooperative communications; swarm secure issues; swarm cooperative decision making

Advanced Communication and Control Technologies for Next-Generation Drones

edited by

Alessandro Vizzarri

, Franco Mazzenga,

Romeo Giuliano

and

Luca Di Nunzio

submission deadline 30 Dec 2025 | Viewed by 44 | Submission Open

Keywords: drones; UAV communication; underwater drone communication; drone control systems; swarm drones; tethered drones; AI for UAVs; FANETs; robotics; wireless systems; mission planning; intelligent systems; autonomous vehicles

(This special issue belongs to the Section Drone Communications)

UAV Detection, Classification, and Tracking

edited by

and

submission deadline 31 Dec 2025 | 4 articles | Viewed by 6915 | Submission Open

Keywords: UAV detection; UAV classification; UAV tracking; optical sensors; IR sensors; RF sensors; radars; deep learning

Computational Fluid Dynamics for Next-Generation Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

edited by

Enrique Aldao Pensado

, Fernando Veiga López and Elena Beatriz Martín Ortega

submission deadline 31 Dec 2025 | Viewed by 27 | Submission Open

Keywords: computational fluid dynamics; urban air mobility; reduced order models; AI-enhanced flow prediction; wind turbulence; urban wind forecasting; microweather; wind gusts; wind-aware path planning

(This special issue belongs to the Section Innovative Urban Mobility)

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