Announcements

Conference: The 2022 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2022)
Date: 23–27 October 2022
Place: Kyoto, Japan

Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) will be attending IROS 2022 as an exhibitor. This meeting will take place from 23 to 27 October in Kyoto, Japan.

IROS is one of the largest and most impactful robotics research conferences worldwide. It provides an international forum for the international robotics research community to explore the frontiers of science and technology in intelligent robots and smart machines. The theme of IROS 2022 is “Embodied AI for a Symbiotic Society”. In addition to technical sessions and multimedia presentations, IROS conferences also hold panel discussions, forums, workshops, tutorials, exhibits, and technical tours to encourage fruitful discussions among conference attendees.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Machines;
• Robotics;
• Sensors;
• Computers;
• Applied Sciences;
• Systems;
• Technologies;
• Inventions;
• JMMP;
• Fractal Fract;
• ASI;
• Smart Cities;
• AI;
• Automation.

If you are planning to attend this conference, please do not hesitate to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions that you may have. For more information about the conference and virtual booth, please visit the following website: https://iros2022.org/.

The 2021 citation metrics have been officially released in Scopus!

We are pleased to announce that 182 MDPI journals are included, of which:

● 21 journals received their first CiteScore.
● 85% of journals increased their CiteScore from 2020.
● 155 journals (85%) ranked above average, in at least one category.

The following 65 MDPI journals (36%) ranked among the top 25% of journals, in at least one category:

Source: 2021 CiteScores™ (Elsevier)

Machines (ISSN 2075-1702; IF 2.428) is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal published semimonthly online by MDPI. It publishes articles, reviews, short communications, and letters that are relevant to any field of study in machinery and engineering. The journal is indexed within Scopus, SCIE (Web of Science), Inspec, and many other databases.

The Machines editorial team is pleased to announce this open call for Special Issue proposals, which offers a group of authors the opportunity to work on an interconnected set of papers on an innovative topic. We are soliciting high-quality proposals that will be evaluated in a continuous selection process throughout the year.

Proposals within the scope of the journal are welcome. For more details, please see: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/machines/about.

If you would like to propose a Special Issue topic for this journal, please contact the Machines Editorial Office (machines@mdpi.com) or complete and submit the form at the following link: https://www.mdpi.com/journalproposal/sendproposalspecialissue/machines. Our editors will respond to you swiftly.

As Guest Editor, you would be responsible for:

• Inviting papers from your peers to be published in this Special Issue and take advantage of our high publicity of open access publishing, our rapid and high-quality peer review process, and immediate publication after acceptance;
• Checking the suitability of abstracts/manuscripts submitted to the Special Issue;
• Making precheck decisions regarding whether to send a new submission to peer review;
• Making final decisions regarding whether to accept a paper based on peer review outcomes.

As Guest Editor, you would have the following privileges:

• A recognition certificate as a Guest Editor of Machines;
• The ability to publish papers with special discounts;
• The opportunity to invite high-quality papers to be published in your Special Issue free of charge or with certain discounts;
• Subject to the Special Issue’s success, with a minimum of 10 accepted manuscripts after full peer review, a printed book version of your Special Issue, with a copy sent to you free of charge.

The Editorial Office will set up the Special Issue’s website, arrange the promotional materials, assist with the invitations for paper contributions, and take care of the administrative tasks associated with peer review, including inviting reviewers, collating reports, contacting authors, and arranging professional production before publication.

Please do not hesitate to contact the Editorial Office (machines@mdpi.com) for further details and clarification.

We look forward to receiving your proposals.

Machines Editorial Office

We are pleased to announce that the winners of the Machines 2021 Young Investigator Award are Dr. Chen Lv, Dr. Ignacio Gonzalez-Prieto and Dr. Ning Sun.

As awardees, each of them will receive an honorarium of CHF 1000, an offer to publish a paper free of charge before the end of August 2022 in Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) after the completion of the peer-review process, and an engraved plaque.

Dr. Chen Lv is an Associate Professor at the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, and the Cluster Director in Future Mobility Solutions, Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore. Dr. Chen Lv’s research focuses on human-centric design, optimization and control for advanced mechatronics with particular applications in vehicle intelligence and electrification. He has published 2 books, over 120 papers (6 ESI highly cited papers, 2 hot papers, citation>3700, h-index: 33, i10-index: 70), obtained 12 granted patents, received numerous awards, and developed several real-world applications. He thanks the journal Machines for the recognition, and the support from his advisors, collaborators, and the students in his team. He also adds: “In the future, I look forward to collaborating with the journal Machines and other researchers in the community more closely, to create more innovative solutions to intelligent machines.”.

Dr. Ignacio Gonzalez-Prieto is currently a Juan de la Cierva Incorporacion researcher at the Department of Electrical Engineering at the University of Malaga (UMA), Spain. Dr. Ignacio Gonzalez-Prieto’s research interests include multiphase machines, wind energy systems, and electrical vehicles. He has been a research member with active participation in the research group ACE-TI (recognized by Junta de Andalucía with the denomination TIC 201) since September 2013. During his collaboration with ACE-TI, he published 38 JCR journal papers, with 27 of them located in the first quartile (Q1) according to the JCR index. Regarding the quality of his publications, a significant number of them (20) have been published in the first decile journals. A high impact on the area of multiphase electric drives has been generated as a consequence of his research activity (1387 citations, h-index=18 Google Scholar, h-index=16 WoS). He expressed his thanks to the Machines Evaluation Committee, his team and his family. He also adds, regarding scientific work: “Science is magic and we need to enjoy it!”.

Dr. Ning Sun is currently a Full Professor at the Institute of Robotics and Automatic Information Systems, College of Artificial Intelligence, Nankai University, China. His research interests include dynamics analysis and the advanced control of mechatronic/robotic/mechanical systems with applications in industrial systems. He has published more than 50 papers in prestigious journals and has had 18 Chinese invention patents granted. Moreover, he has been granted more than 10 research projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC)-Key Program and the National Key Research and Development Program of China. He has received several important awards, including the 2021 IEEE Outstanding Paper Award for the IEEE Transactions on Industrial Electronics. He says: “I am very grateful for the great efforts of the Award Evaluation Committee and the journal Editorial Office. In the future, I will continue efforts to develop the field of machines. I also wish the journal Machines every success.”.

We would like to thank all the nominees from various fields of study for their participation and all the Award Evaluation Committee Members for their evaluation of the many excellent nominations.

Machines 2022 Young Investigator Award is now open for nominations. Please apply online before 31 October 2022 at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/machines/awards/submit/1779.

Machines Young Investigator Award Evaluation Committee

Conference: The 30th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED 2022)

Date: 28 June–1 July 2022

Venue: Divani Apollon Palace & Thalasso, Athens, Greece

Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) will be attending the 30th Mediterranean Conference on Control and Automation (MED 2022) as an exhibitor and will be sponsoring a Best Paper Award. This meeting will take place from 28 June to 1 July 2022, at the Divani Apollon Palace & Thalasso seaside resort in Vougliameni, Greece.

MED 2022 is co-sponsored by the IEEE Control Systems Society (CSS), the IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (RAS), and the ICUAS Association, Inc.

The theme of MED 2022 centers on control and automation challenges and opportunities in the 21^st century and focuses on system design for autonomy and resilience in high-confidence cyber physical systems. The international conference committee is soliciting technical papers as well as inviting sessions, workshops, and tutorial proposals.

The following MDPI journals will be represented:

• Machines;
• Systems;
• Robotics;
• Automation;
• Smart Cities;
• Applied sciences;
• Applied System Innovation (ASI);
• AI;
• Standards;
• Technologies;
• Big Data and Cognitive Computing (BDCC);
• Modelling.

If you are planning to attend this conference, please do not hesitate to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have. For more information about the conference and virtual booth, please visit the following website: https://www.med-control.org/med2022/.

We are pleased to announce the winner of the “Machines 2021 Best Cover Paper Award”. In total, 12 cover stories published in 2021 in Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) were considered for this award.

The winning cover paper is:

“Functional Design of a Hybrid Leg–Wheel–Track Ground Mobile Robot”

by Luca Bruzzone, Mario Baggetta, Shahab E. Nodehi, Pietro Bilancia and Pietro Fanghella
(doi: 10.3390/machines9010010)

Vol. 9, Issue 1 (January 2021)

The winners of the “Machines 2021 Best Cover Paper Award” will receive CHF 100.

Congratulations to the winners for their excellent research!

Machines Editorial Office

Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702) will be attending the 5th IEEE—RAS International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft 2022) as an exhibitor and sponsoring a Best Poster Award. This meeting will be held virtually from 4 to 8 April 2022.

The 5th IEEE-RAS International Conference on Soft Robotics deals with the theme of “Soft Robots for the Planet”, presenting the most recent progress in the various fields of soft robotics and discussing new science, new technologies, and new opportunities for the design, development, and application of “green” soft robots for the Earth’s safeguarding, human healthcare, and the improvement of quality of life.

Recent environmental and medical emergencies have highlighted the key role of science and technology in helping humanity and the planet. Soft robotics, with its highly multidisciplinary scientific and technological character, has the potential to be a game-changer for these current global challenges and future ones.

If you are attending this conference, please do not hesitate to start an online conversation with us. Our delegates look forward to meeting you in person and answering any questions you may have.

For more information about the conference and our virtual booth, please visit the following website: https://softroboticsconference.org/.

Conference: The 1st International Electronic Conference on Machines and Applications
Date: 15–30 September 2022
Website: https://iecma2022.sciforum.net/

We are pleased to announce that the 1st International Electronic Conference on Machines and Applications (IECMA 2022), chaired by Prof. Dr. Antonio J. Marques Cardoso, Prof. Dr. Dan Zhang and Prof. Dr. Giuseppe Carbone, will be held on Sciforum (https://iecma2022.sciforum.net/) from 15 to 30 September 2022.

The scope of this online conference is to get together renowned experts from around the world who are currently working on machinery and engineering and to provide an online forum for presenting and discussing new results.

Throughout this event, we aim to cover, among others, the following topics:

• Machines testing and maintenance;
• Automation systems;
• Mechatronic and intelligent machines;
• Turbomachinery;
• Electrical machines and drives;
• Advanced manufacturing.

There will be two special sessions:

• Vehicle dynamics and control;
• Friction and tribology.

There will also be a Poster session. Posters can be presented without an accompanying proceedings paper and will be available online on the conference website during and after the e-conference. However, they will not be added to the proceedings of the conference.

Participants will have the opportunity to examine, explore, and critically engage with issues and advances in these areas. We hope to facilitate discussions and exchanges within the community.

This event will solely be an online proceeding, which allows participation from all over the world with no concerns around travel and related expenditures. Participation as well as attendance of this online conference are free of charge.

The 1st International Electronic Conference on Machines and Applications (IECMA) will be held at https://iecma2022.sciforum.net/, on a platform developed by MDPI to organize electronic conferences.

The 1st International Electronic Conference on Machines and Applications (IECMA) is sponsored by MDPI and the scientific journal Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702), an Open Access publication journal of MDPI on machinery and engineering. Accepted papers will be published in the proceedings of this e-conference, and selected papers will be published in Machines with a 20% discount of the APC.

Conference name: 9th International Symposium on Sensor Science (I3S 2022)

Conference website: https://i3s2022warsaw.sciforum.net/

Date: 20–22 June 2022

Place: Warsaw, Poland

It is with great pleasure that we announce the 9th International Symposium on Sensor Science, to be held in Warsaw, Poland, from 20 to 22 June 2022.

Sensor technology has been shown to be suitable for applications in many important fields, including industrial applications, security medical diagnostics, and environmental monitoring. This international conference, supported by the Photonics Society of Poland, Warsaw University of Technology, as well as MDPI’s Sensors (ISSN: 1424-8220), will bring together scientists from different areas to discuss important recent developments in sensor technology. It will represent a great opportunity for an in-person meeting of an interdisciplinary community aiming to discuss important breakthroughs in sensor technology and its related fields.

The main topics of the conference include:

• Chemical sensors;
• Biosensors;
• Physical sensors;
• Optical/photonic sensors;
• Sensor applications;
• Specialty optical fibers for sensing;
• Materials, microfluidics, configurations and strategies for sensing;
• Distributed sensing in optical fibers;
• Amorphous materials for sensor applications.

We look forward to your participation in this exciting event.

Dr. Piotr Lesiak, Prof. Tomasz Woliński and Prof. Leszek Jaroszewicz
I3S 2022 Conference Chairs

Follow the conversation on Twitter with #I3S2022

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Matthias Meinke has been appointed Editor-in-Chief of the newly established Section “Turbomachinery” in Machines (ISSN: 2075-1702).

Name: Dr. Matthias Meinke
Email: m.meinke@aia.rwth-aachen.de
Affiliation: Institute of Aerodynamics, RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany
Homepage: http://www.aia.rwth-aachen.de/en/der-lehrstuhl/abteilungsleitung/dr-ing-matthias-meinke/
Research Keywords: computational fluid dynamics; numerical methods for multiphysics; aeroacoustics; aerodynamics

Dr. Matthias Meinke received his M.Sc. (Dipl.-Ing.) and Ph.D. (Dr.-Ing.) degrees in mechanical engineering with honors from RWTH Aachen University in 1986 and 1993, respectively. After obtaining his Ph.D. degree, he became the head of the CFD group of the Institute of Aerodynamics of RWTH Aachen University. Since 1993, he has been teaching a Bachelor and Master course in computational fluid dynamics at RWTH Aachen University and has given lectures in various international universities, in Japan, Thailand, Kazakhstan, and Korea, to name a few. He is a reviewer for many international conferences and journals. Under his supervision, the CFD group is actively developing multiphysics simulation software, which will be published as an open-source project in 2022. He is the author of more than 150 journal articles, and at present, his Google Scholar h-index is 37.

The following is a short Q&A with Dr. Matthias Meinke, who shared with us his vision for the journal and his views of the research area and open access publishing:

1. What appealed to you about the journal that made you want to take on the role of its Section Editor-in-Chief?
The role of Editor-in-Chief is a responsible one, as it helps to guarantee a meaningful selection of topics for a journal and to ensure a high quality of publications. After having published many papers in the past myself, I hope that I can contribute with my experience as an editor.

2. What is your vision for the Section?
Turbomachinery contains many different fields of intertwined, complex physics. I would like to promote the publication of papers leading to an enhanced understanding of phenomena that are not yet understood, to support papers introducing new experimental or simulation techniques, which could be useful for other researchers, and finally to support new emerging topics in the field of turbomachinery.

3. What does the future of this field of research look like?
We are facing challenges such as global warming, which requires a reduction in the burning of fossil fuels. Therefore, I expect increased research in the field of operating turbines with alternative fuels, energy storage systems, and flexible operation of powerplants. Besides this, I expect topics such as digital twins, failure prediction, uncertainty quantification, and multiphysics modeling to become more important.

4. What do you think of the development of Open Access in the publishing field?
I am a big fan of publishing articles with open access, since this makes it much easier for all researchers to share their knowledge. I personally believe that more and more publishers will opt for Open Access publishing in the future.  

We warmly welcome Dr. Matthias Meinke in taking up his role as Section Editor-in-Chief, and we look forward to him leading Machines to many more milestones.