The Future of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) and IoT Technologies: Challenges, and Innovations

Dear Colleagues:

We invite you to contribute original research or review articles to this Special Issue, which explores the evolving landscape of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Internet of Things (IoT) technologies. This issue aims to highlight recent innovations, emerging applications, and the open challenges within each field, as well as their growing convergence.

UAVs have become highly adaptable platforms across diverse domains such as aerial surveillance, remote sensing, disaster response, precision agriculture, and wireless communications. We welcome submissions focused on advancements in autonomous navigation, swarm coordination, onboard edge computing, flight path optimisation, and the integration of UAVs with terrestrial and satellite networks.

IoT technologies continue to transform how systems sense, communicate, and interact with the physical environment. Topics of interest include sensor networks, low-power communication protocols (e.g., LoRa, NB-IoT, 6LoWPAN), energy-efficient data processing, distributed intelligence, and interoperability across large-scale IoT infrastructures.

We are particularly interested in contributions that examine the synergistic integration of UAVs and IoT—where UAVs serve as mobile sensors, data collectors, communication relays, or edge computing nodes within IoT ecosystems. Such applications are especially valuable in remote, dynamic, or inaccessible environments.

Relevant research areas include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Advanced UAV control, autonomy, and AI-driven decision making
• Swarm UAV coordination and collaborative mission planning
• UAVs as mobile relays in wireless sensor networks
• Security and privacy in UAV and IoT systems
• Use of LoRa, 5G, and LPWAN technologies in IoT deployments
• Intelligent sensor fusion and edge analytics
• Energy-efficient design in UAV and IoT systems
• UAV-enabled data collection in smart agriculture, environmental monitoring, and disaster management
• Testbeds and simulation platforms for UAV/IoT research
• Regulatory, ethical, and societal considerations

I/We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Prof. Dr. Piotr Zwierzykowski
Dr. Maciej Piechowiak
Prof. Dr. Erich Leitgeb
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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.

• Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
• Internet of Things (IoT)
• Edge Computing
• Swarm Coordination
• Wireless Sensor Networks