Enhancing Underwater Navigation, Localization, and Path Planning for Marine Robotics: Advances and Challenges
A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Computer Science & Engineering".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2025 | Viewed by 930
Special Issue Editors
Interests: underwater acoustic signal processing; underwater acoustic propagation; underwater localization
Interests: underwater acoustic communication; underwater acoustic positioning; underwater PNT (positioning, navigation, and timing); underwater navigation systems
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
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
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Keywords
- multi-sensor fusion and measurement
- acoustic navigation
- LBL/SBL/USBL
- SLAM and sonar-based localization
- collaborative localization
- artificial neural networks
- motion planning
- communication systems
- navigation and guidance systems
- intelligent control and automation systems
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