Multi-Sensor Fusion for Positioning and Navigation of Aerospace Vehicles

Dear Colleagues,

Navigation and Positioning systems, which are conceived to provide robotic platforms with accurate and real-time estimates of their state and covariance, are essential to the autonomous operations of aerospace vehicles in a wide range of application scenarios.

For instance, in the space domain, autonomous systems (e.g., satellites, probes, rovers and other robotic platforms) are required to perform next-generation space missions such as in-orbit servicing, in-orbit assembly, and active debris removal, while also being essential for the landing and exploration of planets and small celestial bodies. Similarly, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) with an increased level of autonomy are envisaged to carry out many military and civilian tasks, such as inspection and surveillance, air transportation (e.g., within the urban air mobility framework), package delivery, 3D mapping, and precision agriculture.

In all these scenarios, multi-sensor fusion is widely recognized as a key solution to the design of real-time navigation and positioning systems that are able to satisfy extremely strict requirements in terms of accuracy, reliability and safety. In fact, multi-sensor architectures can provide not only increased robustness via redundancy, but also enhanced performance via the exploitation of the complementary characteristics of different sensor sources. Relevant examples are navigation systems integrating GNSS, magnetometers, and inertial sensors with exteroceptive sources like cameras, LIDARs, and radars.

Hence, this Special Issue welcomes original research contributions and state-of-the-art reviews on innovative technologies and algorithms that aim to enhance the autonomous navigation capabilities of future aerospace vehicles by exploiting multi-sensor architectures. Sensor fusion can occur at different levels, including raw data processing, cross-sensor cueing, and state estimation, as well as for robust environment perception. The scope of this Special Issue includes, but is not limited to, the following:

• Multi-sensor-based simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM);
• Multi-sensor fusion for hazard map generation and landing site selection;
• Multi-sensor-based navigation for planetary landing;
• Multi-sensor-based relative navigation for close-proximity operations on orbit;
• Sensor fusion techniques for aerial vehicle navigation;
• Autonomous navigation in indoor and outdoor environments;
• Resilient navigation in GNSS denied or challenged environments;
• Radar/visual/lidar-aided inertial navigation of unmanned aerial vehicles;
• Assured positioning navigation and timing (A-PNT) techniques;
• Cooperative navigation for swarms of heterogeneous or homogeneous aircrafts;
• Galileo high-accuracy service (HAS) applications;
• GNSS integrity monitoring.

Dr. Roberto Opromolla
Dr. Flavia Causa
Guest Editors

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