Advancements in Autonomous UAVs for Infrastructure Inspection and Monitoring

Dear Colleagues,

UAVs with higher levels of autonomy are increasingly utilized by civil engineering and remote sensing communities for performing infrastructure inspections. This Special Issue calls for the latest research, innovative case studies, and methodologies to support more integration of self-operating UAVs into the inspection and monitoring of infrastructure. By presenting current developments and exploring emerging trends, this Special Issue will be a significant resource for researchers, industry professionals, and practitioners who would like to improve the efficiency, safety, and precision of the inspection processes.

This Special Issue will deal with how cutting-edge technology meets practical applications, providing deep insights into how UAV autonomy and remote sensing are altering infrastructure management. In addition, it will illustrate how such technologies are currently being implemented in various fields to address real-world problems, thereby reshaping our perspective on infrastructure inspection and maintenance.

The Special Issue is particularly relevant to researchers and professionals in the following areas:

- Civil engineering;
- Robotics and automation;
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning;
- Remote sensing and geospatial sciences;
- Infrastructure management.

Topics of Interest
This Special Issue invites contributions that cover the following topics:

- Autonomous UAV Path Planning for Infrastructure Inspection: Innovations in automated path planning algorithms, including deep learning and SLAM for complex environments.
- AI and Machine Learning in UAV-Based Infrastructure Inspection: Application of deep learning, computer vision, and neural networks for defect/crack detection, data classification, and object recognition.
- Collision Avoidance and Navigation in UAV Inspections: Advanced sensing and avoidance systems enabling UAVs to safely operate in challenging conditions.
- Multi-UAV Coordination and Swarm Robotics in Inspections: The use of coordinated UAV swarms for large-scale infrastructure assessments.
- Integration of UAVs with Cloud Computing and IoT for Real-Time Monitoring: Enabling real-time data analysis and decision making through cloud platforms and IoT connectivity.
- Challenges and Solutions in Autonomous UAV Inspections: Addressing regulatory, weather, connectivity, and GNSS-denied environment issues.
- Applications in Specific Sectors: Case studies on autonomous UAV inspections in industries such as oil and gas, energy, construction, aviation, and transportation infrastructure.
- Future Trends: Exploration of emerging technologies like AR/VR, hybrid UAV systems, and GNSS-independent navigation for inspections.

Submission Guidelines:
- Submissions must include a “Code and Data Availability”, describing how and where the code, software, and data can be accessed.
- Submissions without a clear commitment to sharing code and data in open repositories will be reviewed with caution, with preference given to those adhering to the open science principle.

Dr. Bashar Alsadik
Dr. Samer Karam
Dr. Daniel Rodrigues Dos Santos
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. Remote Sensing 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 2700 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.

• UAV, UAS, and drones
• autonomous
• SLAM
• path planning
• big data
• infrastructure
• civil engineering
• machine learning and deep learning
• three-dimensional mapping
• navigation
• data fusion
• LiDAR
• RGB-D
• mapping
• real-time
• graph-based
• Kalman filter
• active exploration