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Sensor Fusion: Kalman Filtering for Engineering Applications

A special issue of Sensors (ISSN 1424-8220). This special issue belongs to the section "Physical Sensors".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 25 June 2026 | Viewed by 2549

Special Issue Editors

School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia
Interests: vehicular navigation; INS/GNSS integration; cubature Kalman filter; abnormal observations identification; Mahalanobis distance criterion

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Guest Editor
School of Engineering, RMIT University, Melbourne, VIC 3083, Australia
Interests: robotic minimally invasive surgery; surgical simulation; soft tissue characterization and modeling; virtual reality and haptics; sensing and measurement; mobile robots; robotic path planning; optimal estimation; information filtering; multi-sensor data fusion; integrated navigation system; vehicle navigation
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Guest Editor
School of Automation, Northwestern Polytechnical University, Xi’an 710072, China
Interests: multi-sensor technology; navigation and control technology; intelligent sensing and robot positioning technology; information fusion; artificial intelligence
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

The fusion of data from multiple sensors is a critical aspect of modern systems, enhancing their precision, reliability, and robustness. Kalman filtering is one of the most widely used techniques for integrating multisensory data, providing optimal state estimation for dynamic systems. With advancements in sensor technology and computational power, sensor fusion based on Kalman filtering has become essential in fields such as computational biology, medicine, autonomous navigation, intelligent systems and robotics.

This Special Issue will bring together original research and review articles on the latest developments, applications, and challenges in sensor fusion with a focus on Kalman filtering for biomedical and engineering applications. We welcome contributions that explore theoretical advancements, practical implementations, and innovative solutions related to this rapidly evolving topic.

Potential topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Kalman filter-based sensor fusion for navigation and control;
  • Sensor fusion in autonomous vehicles and robotics;
  • Real-time sensor integration for biomedical systems;
  • GPS and inertial measurement unit (IMU) fusion using Kalman filters;
  • Kalman filters for identification of nonlinear systems;
  • Adaptive Kalman filtering for dynamic environment;
  • Multisensor-based route planning and haptic control;
  • Applications of Kalman filtering in surgical simulation, soft tissue deformation, and biological information processing;
  • Optimizations in computational biology, medicine, and diagnostics.

Dr. Xinhe Zhu
Dr. Yongmin Zhong
Dr. Bingbing Gao
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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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

  • Kalman filter
  • sensor fusion
  • multiple sensors
  • autonomous navigation
  • GPS and IMU fusion
  • biomedical systems
  • computational biology

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

23 pages, 2364 KB  
Article
An Improved Variational Bayesian-Based Adaptive Federated Kalman Filter for Multi-Sensor Integrated Navigation Systems
by Yuwei Yan and Jing Yang
Sensors 2025, 25(23), 7173; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25237173 - 24 Nov 2025
Viewed by 410
Abstract
Efficient fusion of navigation sensor data with different output frequencies and data types is critical for ensuring that vehicle-mounted integrated navigation systems consistently provide stable, reliable navigation solutions in complex dynamic operational environments. To address the degradation of estimation accuracy caused by the [...] Read more.
Efficient fusion of navigation sensor data with different output frequencies and data types is critical for ensuring that vehicle-mounted integrated navigation systems consistently provide stable, reliable navigation solutions in complex dynamic operational environments. To address the degradation of estimation accuracy caused by the noise characteristics mismatch of sensor measurement, an information fusion framework based on federated Kalman filter (FKF) framework is designed by incorporating an improved variational Bayesian-based adaptive Kalman filter (IVBAKF) as the core estimation module of local filters. IVBAKF mitigates the impact of uncertain measurement noise from navigation sensors through effectively estimating the measurement noise covariance matrix (MNCM) by leveraging an adaptive forgetting factor. The adjustment strategy for the forgetting factor employs a predefined mapping function derived from the squared Mahalanobis distance (SMD) of the measurement innovation, which serves as an indicator for detecting anomalies in measurement noise within the FKF, thereby enhancing the tracking capability for the MNCMs. The effectiveness of the proposed algorithm is validated through Monte Carlo simulation-based comparative experiments. The simulation results demonstrate that compared to the FKF-based baseline algorithm with nominal covariance matrices, the proposed algorithm achieves an average reduction of 43.21% in the Root Mean Square Errors (RMSEs) of the estimated navigation parameters in scenarios characterized by uncertain and time-varying measurement noise. Thus, the robustness of the proposed algorithm against complex measurement noise conditions is verified. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensor Fusion: Kalman Filtering for Engineering Applications)
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18 pages, 1927 KB  
Article
An Adaptive Unscented Kalman Ilter Integrated Navigation Method Based on the Maximum Versoria Criterion for INS/GNSS Systems
by Jiahao Zhang, Kaiqiang Feng, Jie Li, Chunxing Zhang and Xiaokai Wei
Sensors 2025, 25(11), 3483; https://doi.org/10.3390/s25113483 - 31 May 2025
Viewed by 867
Abstract
Aimed at the problem of navigation performance degradation in inertial navigation system/global navigation satellite system (INS/GNSS)-integrated navigation systems due to measurement anomalies and non-Gaussian measurement noise in complex navigation environments, an adaptive unscented Kalman filter (AUKF) algorithm based on the maximum versoria criterion [...] Read more.
Aimed at the problem of navigation performance degradation in inertial navigation system/global navigation satellite system (INS/GNSS)-integrated navigation systems due to measurement anomalies and non-Gaussian measurement noise in complex navigation environments, an adaptive unscented Kalman filter (AUKF) algorithm based on the maximum versoria criterion (MVC) is developed. The proposed method is designed to enhance INS/GNSS-integrated navigation system robustness and accuracy by addressing the limitations of conventional filtering approaches. An adaptive unscented Kalman filter is constructed to enable dynamic adjustment of filter parameters, allowing for real-time adaptation to measurement anomalies. This ensures accurate tracking of navigation parameter states, thereby improving the robustness of the INS/GNSS-integrated navigation system in the presence of abnormal measurements. On this basis, fully considering the high-order moments of estimation errors, the maximum versoria criterion is introduced as the optimization criterion to construct a novel cost function, further effectively suppressing deviations caused by non-Gaussian disturbances and improving system navigation accuracy. The effectiveness of the proposed method was verified through vehicle navigation experiments. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method outperforms traditional approaches, effectively handling measurement anomalies and non-Gaussian measurement noise while maintaining robust navigation performance. Specifically, compared to the EKF, UKF, and MCCUKF, the proposed method reduces the root mean square error of velocity and position by over 60%, 50%, and 30%, respectively, under complex navigation conditions. The algorithm exhibits good accuracy and stability in complex environments, showcasing its practical applicability in real-world navigation systems. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Sensor Fusion: Kalman Filtering for Engineering Applications)
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