New Trends in Distributed Estimation and Control of Network Autonomous Systems

Dear Colleagues,

The rapid advancement of information technology has transformed autonomous systems into sophisticated, intelligent, networked architectures known as Networked Autonomous Systems (NASs). These systems facilitate seamless coordination across perception, control, and decision-making processes, crucial in industrial automation, smart manufacturing, intelligent transportation, energy grids, and precision agriculture. Despite their potential, the effective deployment of NASs presents significant challenges. In terms of perception, integrating heterogeneous and asynchronous sensor data can lead to inconsistencies, delays, and fusion bottlenecks, affecting the accuracy of state estimations. Furthermore, NASs must function in dynamic and uncertain environments, confronting internal faults, external disturbances, and cyber threats. Ensuring safety and reliability through cooperative control is paramount. Additionally, resource-aware optimization requires efficient coordination among interconnected agents to balance performance against communication, energy, and computation constraints.

Given these challenges, this Special Issue invites innovative research on distributed estimation, control, and optimization methodologies for NASs, bridging advancements in control theory, robotics, networks, and artificial intelligence. We welcome submissions of theoretical, algorithmic, and applied contributions that will help to shape next-generation autonomous systems.

This Special Issue will focus on (but is not limited to) the following topics: 

• Networked autonomous systems;
• Interconnected positive systems;
• Heterogeneous formation;
• Resilient networked control;
• Swarm cyber-security;
• Network privacy protection;
• Distributed estimation;
• Dynamic information fusion;
• Safety-critical autonomy;
• Fault-tolerant control;
• Prescribed-time coordination.

Dr. Jason J. R. Liu
Prof. Dr. James Lam
Dr. Hak Keung Lam
Prof. Dr. Mohammed Chadli
Prof. Dr. Guanghui Wen
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.