Intelligent Architectures for Autonomous Systems and Critical Infrastructure Security

Dear Colleagues,

There is an increasing reliance today on architectures where hardware and software components are deeply integrated, allowing for sensing, processing, communication, control, and artificial intelligence functions. Modern systems, including unmanned aerial systems, autonomous ground vehicles, smart grids, industrial control systems, intelligent transportation systems, and other critical infrastructures, must work reliably in complex and often adverse environments.

To encourage high-quality scientific discussions in this Special Issue, entitled “Intelligent Architectures for Autonomous Systems and Critical Infrastructure Security,” we welcome submissions of research papers focusing on the design, development, optimization, validation, and protection of intelligent cyber–physical systems.

There is an increasingly wide use of the technologies of autonomy and artificial intelligence, which opens new ways of application but brings new threats. The autonomous systems should handle huge amounts of sensor data and be able to make decisions and adjust themselves in a timely manner in accordance with changing operational conditions. In addition, the critical infrastructure systems are increasingly exposed to threats of cyber, physical, and hybrid nature, such as adversarial attacks to the AI models, spoofing sensors, communication jamming, supply chain attacks and many others.

We would like to see theoretical and practical contributions, including novel architectures, innovative approaches to algorithm design and validation, experimental and testing platforms for intelligent autonomous systems, and critical infrastructures security. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Intelligent hardware–software co-design for autonomous systems;
• Embedded AI and edge computing for real-time autonomy;
• Secure and resilient cyber–physical systems;
• AI-enabled monitoring and protection of critical infrastructures;
• Cybersecurity for smart grids, transportation systems, energy systems, water networks, healthcare infrastructure, and industrial control systems;
• Secure communication architectures for autonomous and distributed systems;
• Sensor fusion, perception, localization, and decision-making in adversarial environments;
• Autonomous unmanned aerial, ground, and maritime systems;
• Digital twins for autonomous systems and critical infrastructure resilience;
• AI-based anomaly detection, intrusion detection, and predictive maintenance;
• Adversarial machine learning and robust AI for safety-critical systems;

This Special Issue seeks to highlight advances that support the development of trustworthy, resilient, and intelligent autonomous technologies capable of operating safely and securely in critical environments.

Dr. Christos Pavlatos
Dr. Evangelos Makris
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 1800 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.

• intelligent hardware–software architectures
• autonomous systems
• critical infrastructure security
• cyber-physical systems
• embedded artificial intelligence
• edge computing
• unmanned aerial systems
• sensor fusion
• autonomous navigation
• cybersecurity
• safety-critical systems
• secure-by-design architectures