UAV Positioning: From Ground to Sky

Dear Colleagues,

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have become an invaluable tool for numerous remote sensing applications. Many of these applications require knowledge of the UAV position with high accuracy (e.g., airborne radar systems). Furthermore, the improvements in positioning accuracy can foster novel applications that could benefit from such enhanced positioning. The decrease in cost and convergence time of real-time kinematic (RTK) receivers has contributed to their adoption for a wide range of applications. However, as they are based on global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), they can suffer from GNSS jamming and cannot work directly indoors. Therefore, other sensors, such as depth and tracking cameras, have been increasingly used to overcome these issues.

This Special Issue aims to explore high-accuracy positioning systems for UAVs, focusing on the latest advances in both hardware and software. Application-oriented manuscripts are also encouraged, provided high-accuracy positioning is essential for the application.

In this Special Issue, original research articles and reviews are welcome. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

• Positioning sensors: GNSS, RTK, PPK (post-processing kinematic), PPP (precise point positioning); optical-based positioning; depth cameras; LIDAR (light detection and ranging); radar-based positioning.
• Sensor fusion (e.g., IMU + RTK).
• Indoor, outdoor, and indoor–outdoor systems.
• Applications where high positioning accuracy is required: radar (e.g., enabling synthetic aperture radar approaches), antenna measurement, mapping, among others.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Dr. María García Fernández
Dr. Guillermo Álvarez-Narciandi
Guest Editors

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