Autonomous Operation and Intelligent Control of Robotic Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Robotic systems are rapidly transitioning from human-supervised or teleoperated tools to autonomous agents capable of operating, coordinating, and adapting in complex, uncertain, cluttered, and unstructured environments. This shift is made possible by advances across control theory, machine learning, planning, perception, formal methods, and hardware design. As robots increasingly take on roles in many areas, including manufacturing, logistics, healthcare, transportation, agriculture, ocean exploration, and planetary science, the demand for robust autonomy—grounded in safety, reliability, and verifiability—continues to grow.

This Special Issue, “Autonomous Operation and Intelligent Control of Robotic Systems”, aims to bring together cutting-edge research that advances the theoretical foundations, computational algorithms, and practical applications of autonomous robotic systems. We seek contributions that go beyond conventional control or planning techniques by integrating cross-disciplinary methods, addressing real-world challenges, or demonstrating autonomy at meaningful scales (e.g., multi-robot teams, long-horizon missions, safety-critical operation, or hybrid human–robot workflows).

A key objective of this Special Issue is to enable robots not only to make decisions but also to understand their operational context, adapt to novel situations, and interact safely and efficiently with humans and other robots. This includes autonomy across different layers—from low-level motion control and state estimation to high-level decision-making, reasoning, and fleet coordination. We particularly welcome studies that unify model-based and data-driven approaches, leverage uncertainty quantification, or address emergent challenges such as out-of-distribution operation, degraded sensing, intermittent communication, and human trust.

Another focus is the increasing emphasis on verifiability and assurance. As learning-enabled components (e.g., computer vision, reinforcement learning) enter safety-critical domains, the robotics community must address how to certify behavior, enforce constraints, and guarantee safe operation. Contributions involving formal verification, runtime assurance, interpretable autonomy, and resilient planning under uncertainty are, therefore, highly encouraged.

By gathering diverse perspectives from control, robotics, AI, cognitive science, and domain applications, this Special Issue aims to catalyze transformative advances. Ultimately, our goal is to shape the next generation of autonomous robotic systems capable of trustworthy, adaptive, and intelligent operation across both everyday and extreme environments.

Submissions may address, but are not limited to, the following areas:

• Autonomous decision-making, planning, and reasoning for single-robot and multi-robot systems;
• Learning-enabled control, including reinforcement learning, imitation learning, and hybrid model-based/ model-free methods;
• Formal methods, verification, and safety assurance for autonomous robotic behaviors;
• Uncertainty-aware control and perception, including robust, stochastic, and distributional approaches;
• Human–robot interaction and shared autonomy, including intent inference, trust, and adaptive teaming;
• Multi-robot coordination, swarm robotics, and distributed control under communication and resource constraints;
• Navigation, manipulation, and locomotion in unstructured, dynamic, and extreme environments;
• Runtime monitoring, failure detection, and resilience in long-duration autonomous missions;
• Hierarchical, neuro-symbolic, or graph-based representations for robotic decision-making and control;
• Applied robotic autonomy, including manufacturing, agriculture, marine robotics, aerial/ space robotics, and healthcare robotics.

Dr. Chuangchuang Sun
Guest Editor

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. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2400 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.

• robotics
• autonomous operation
• control theory