Advanced Control Strategies for Autonomous Maritime Systems
A special issue of Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (ISSN 2077-1312). This special issue belongs to the section "Ocean Engineering".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 September 2025 | Viewed by 4514
Special Issue Editors
Interests: robust/optimal control systems; safety-critical control; model predictive control; reinforcement learning; autonomous and intelligent platforms (unmanned aerial and marine vehicles)
Interests: safe reinforcement learning; model predictive control; optimization for autonomous vehicles; smart-grid applications; multi-agent systems
Interests: localization; control; sensor networks; marine vehicles; identification and modelling
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Autonomous Maritime Systems (AMS) are strongly connected to the maritime industry, with applications ranging from unmanned surface and underwater vehicles to intelligent shipping solutions. Advanced path planning and control algorithms are vital for ensuring that these unmanned vehicles can operate autonomously with high reliability and precision, especially in challenging maritime environments. These control approaches incorporate various elements of adaptive and robust machine learning methods and optimal control schemes, which allow AMS to safely navigate in the presence of external disturbances such as waves, ocean currents, and wind. By using advanced learning-based optimal control strategies, AMS can optimize their trajectory, minimize fuel consumption, and improve overall operational efficiency. These control methods also account for the inherent uncertainties in the maritime domain, ensuring system robustness against disturbances and equipment failures. In addition to basic navigation and collision avoidance, advanced control strategies enable higher-level autonomy for networked autonomous marine vehicles. For example, multi-agent systems coordination allows fleets of autonomous ships or underwater vehicles to collaborate on complex missions. This Special Issue offers a collection of high-quality research articles contributing to topics on:
- Guidance, navigation, and control of autonomous surface and underwater vehicles;
- Path following, path planning, and collision avoidance algorithms;
- Methods and tools for the development of digital twins of marine control systems;
- Risk-aware decision-making and safety-critical control of autonomous marine systems;
- Intelligent autonomous marine systems;
- Learning-based control algorithms for marine robotics;
- Robust, adaptive, and nonlinear control approaches in marine systems;
- Model Predictive Control (MPC) for motion planning and control of autonomous marine vehicles;
- Distributed and cooperative control systems for marine operations.
Dr. Hossein Nejatbakhsh Esfahani
Dr. Arash Bahari Kordabad
Prof. Dr. David Moreno-Salinas
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
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. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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 2600 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.
Keywords
- unmanned surface and underwater vehicles
- guidance, navigation and control (GNC) algorithms
- path planning and collision avoidance
- robust and adaptive nonlinear control
- intelligent and learning-based control
- reinforcement learning methods and optimal control
- advanced model predictive control schemes
- cooperative and networked control
- risk-aware and safety-critical control
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