Advances in the Decision-Making and Control of Autonomous Marine Vehicles

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: 1 November 2025 | Viewed by 39

Special Issue Editors


E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, CA 93943, USA
Interests: guidance; navigation and control of unmanned air; surface and underwater vehicles; cooperative control; systems dynamics and control
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Computing and IT, University of Doha for Science and Technology, Doha Z68, Qatar
Interests: research areas: robotics & autonomous systems; machine learning; mission-motion planning; situation awareness & decision making; AI

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

In recent years, autonomous marine vehicles (AMVs) have emerged as key enablers in a wide range of maritime applications, including environmental monitoring, seabed mapping, surveillance, search and rescue, sampling, and offshore infrastructure inspection. The increasing demand for long-duration missions in dynamic, uncertain, and GPS-denied environments has driven significant research and development in the areas of intelligent autonomy and real-time decision-making.

Despite notable progress, numerous technical challenges remain, particularly in achieving fully autonomous, persistent, and robust operations with minimal or no human intervention. These challenges include dynamic mission planning, fault tolerance, adaptation to unstructured environments, and safe interactions with other agents or infrastructure.

This Special Issue aims to present recent advances and pioneering research regarding the design, development, and implementation of decision-making, planning, and control systems for AMVs. The scope of this Special Issue includes a broad range of autonomous systems such as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), and hybrid or multi-domain marine robots capable of operating across surface, underwater, or aerial environments.

We invite high-quality original research articles and review papers in, but not limited to, the following areas:

  • Autonomous mission planning and dynamic replanning;
  • Multi-vehicle task assignment and coordination;
  • Guidance, path planning, and trajectory optimization;
  • Motion planning and robust/adaptive control under uncertainty;
  • AI/ML-based decision-making frameworks;
  • Fault detection, resilience, and safe operation in harsh environments;
  • Human-in-the-loop autonomy and shared control architectures;
  • Real-time situational awareness and perception-driven control.

Dr. Amirmehdi Yazdani
Prof. Dr. Oleg Yakimenko
Dr. Somaiyeh MahmoudZadeh
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

  • autonomous marine vehicles
  • autonomous underwater vehicles
  • autonomous surface vehicles
  • intelligent control
  • marine robotics
  • path planning
  • decision-making
  • AI for marine systems
  • multi-agent coordination
  • resilient autonomy

Benefits of Publishing in a Special Issue

  • Ease of navigation: Grouping papers by topic helps scholars navigate broad scope journals more efficiently.
  • Greater discoverability: Special Issues support the reach and impact of scientific research. Articles in Special Issues are more discoverable and cited more frequently.
  • Expansion of research network: Special Issues facilitate connections among authors, fostering scientific collaborations.
  • External promotion: Articles in Special Issues are often promoted through the journal's social media, increasing their visibility.
  • Reprint: MDPI Books provides the opportunity to republish successful Special Issues in book format, both online and in print.

Further information on MDPI's Special Issue policies can be found here.

Published Papers

This special issue is now open for submission.
Back to TopTop