Enhancing Underwater Navigation, Localization, and Path Planning for Marine Robotics: Advances and Challenges

Dear Colleagues,

Underwater navigation, localization, and path planning are foundational technologies for marine robotic systems, including remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) and autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs). These enable the use of these vehicles in critical applications such as environmental monitoring, subsea infrastructure inspection, and deep-sea exploration, particularly in challenging environments characterized by harsh oceanic conditions or partial prior knowledge. Despite technological progress in this area, persistent challenges, including acoustic communication constraints, dynamic model inaccuracies, and environmental uncertainties, continue to impede system reliability. Addressing these limitations is paramount to advancing the operational efficiency, autonomy, and intelligent decision-making of underwater robotic platforms.

This Special Issue seeks original research contributions and comprehensive reviews addressing theoretical innovations and the practical implementation of underwater navigation systems. We particularly welcome interdisciplinary approaches that bridge the gaps between traditional methodologies and emerging computational paradigms. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Integrated Navigation Architectures: Sensor fusion techniques for inertial navigation systems (INSs), Doppler Velocity Logs (DVLs), and sonar-based positioning.
• Acoustic Signal Processing: Advanced algorithms for underwater communication and target detection in noisy environments.
• Adaptive Path Planning: Machine learning-driven strategies for dynamic obstacle avoidance and energy-optimal trajectory generation.
• Resilient Localization: Real-time SLAM implementations and probabilistic frameworks for uncertainty quantification.
• Intelligent Control Systems: Model predictive control and bio-inspired navigation paradigms.

Submissions should present a rigorous theoretical analysis coupled with experimental validation through field trials or high-fidelity simulations. We encourage contributions that highlight novel sensor modalities, edge computing implementations, and the cross-domain applications of AI/ML techniques to push the boundaries of marine robotic autonomy.

Dr. Bo Lei
Prof. Dr. Tongwei Zhang
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. 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.