Recent Advances in Autonomous Localization and Navigation System

A special issue of Electronics (ISSN 2079-9292). This special issue belongs to the section "Systems & Control Engineering".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 March 2026 | Viewed by 261

Special Issue Editor


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Guest Editor
School of Sensing Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China
Interests: multi-source fusion positioning and navigation; crowdsensing and crowdcomputing; context awareness and behavior analysis

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Autonomous localization and navigation system is at the forefront of modern technological advancement, playing a critical role in robotics, autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial systems, and other intelligent platforms. The system allows machines to perceive their surroundings, determine their positions, and navigate effectively in dynamic and unpredictable environment. With the rapid development of sensor technologies, artificial intelligence, and computational algorithms, this field has witnessed significant progress. However, challenges such as enhancing accuracy, robustness, and adaptability in complex environment remain key areas of ongoing research.

This Special Issue aims to highlight the latest research and development in autonomous localization and navigation system, emphasizing innovative electronic solutions and practical applications. The topic aligns with the scope of Electronics by addressing cutting-edge technologies and their implementation in intelligent systems. We welcome contributions that present original research or comprehensive reviews aimed at advancing knowledge and practical implementation in the field. Research areas may include (but not limited to) the following:

  • Sensor fusion and integration for localization and navigation;
  • Simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM) techniques;
  • AI and machine learning for navigation systems;
  • Localization in GPS-denied or challenging environments;
  • Path planning, obstacle avoidance, and trajectory optimization;
  • Real-time processing and embedded systems for navigation;
  • Applications in autonomous vehicles, drones, and robotics.

I look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. Jiuchao Qian
Guest Editor

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Keywords

  • autonomous localization
  • navigation system
  • sensor fusion

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Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

20 pages, 7351 KB  
Article
A Sketch-Based Cross-Modal Retrieval Model for Building Localization Without Satellite Signals
by Haihua Du, Jiawei Fan, Yitao Huang, Longyang Lin and Jiuchao Qian
Electronics 2025, 14(19), 3936; https://doi.org/10.3390/electronics14193936 - 4 Oct 2025
Viewed by 163
Abstract
In existing non-satellite navigation systems, visual localization is widely adopted for its high precision. However, in scenarios with highly similar building structures, traditional visual localization methods that rely on direct coordinate prediction often suffer from decreased accuracy or even failure. Moreover, as scene [...] Read more.
In existing non-satellite navigation systems, visual localization is widely adopted for its high precision. However, in scenarios with highly similar building structures, traditional visual localization methods that rely on direct coordinate prediction often suffer from decreased accuracy or even failure. Moreover, as scene complexity increases, their robustness tends to decline. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a Sketch Line Information Consistency Generation (SLIC) model for indirect building localization. Instead of regressing geographic coordinates, the model retrieves candidate building images that correspond to hand-drawn sketches, and these retrieved results serve as proxies for localization in satellite-denied environments. Within the model, the Line-Attention Block and Relation Block are designed to extract fine-grained line features and structural correlations, thereby improving retrieval accuracy. Experiments on multiple architectural datasets demonstrate that the proposed approach achieves high precision and robustness, with mAP@2 values ranging from 0.87 to 1.00, providing a practical alternative to conventional coordinate-based localization methods. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances in Autonomous Localization and Navigation System)
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