Advances in Marine Vehicles, Automation and Robotics

Dear Colleagues,

You are invited to contribute a submission for publication in a Special Issue of the Journal of Marine Science and Engineering (JMSE), entitled "Advances in Marine Vehicles, Automation and Robotics".

Nowadays, we are capable of investigating the surface of the earth and exploring outer space, but we have minimal knowledge about the ocean environment and deep-sea world. Oceans cover about 70% of the surface area of the earth, and enormous wealth and resources are buried in seas. At present, techniques for the maritime industry and undersea development are still very limited and awkward. The ocean development activities are expanding into various fields as the exhaustion of mineral resources as well as spaces on land is approaching. Subsea oil and gas production, the oceanographic survey of underwater facilities, submarine topography, and the artificial island are realized, as well as the enhancement of traditional ocean activities, such as fisheries and sea transportation. All these activities depend on the specific system technology comprising sea surface and underwater systems. Following the active development of ocean resources, the demand for underwater work has increased rapidly, and various underwater technologies have been developed for various vehicles, such as USVs (unmanned surface vehicles), ROVs (remotely operated vehicles), AUVs (autonomous underwater vehicles), underwater gliders and marine animal robots. Modeling, control and navigation techniques are very important for the design and construction of efficient vehicle systems to enhance safety and reliability.

The aim of this Special Issue is to provide a comprehensive overview of the state of the art in the modeling, control, guidance, state estimation, cooperation and localization of marine vehicles and robotics. We invite research articles that will consolidate our understanding of this area. This Special Issue will publish full research papers and reviews about the recent theoretical and experimental works, applications, advances and challenges in the field. We also encourage contributions outlining the applications of novel techniques that provide important information on this topic. Potential topics of interest for publication include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Unmanned surface vehicle (USV), autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs), remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs), autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), underwater gliders;

• Swarms of unmanned marine vehicles, multiple vehicle mission control and planning, cooperative surface and underwater vehicles;
• Guidance, navigation and path planning;
• Vehicle design;
• Kinematics and vehicle dynamics;
• Maneuvering and navigation schemes;
• Sensor and actuator systems;
• CFD applications;
• Structural models and structural analysis;
• Dynamic positioning system;
• Vehicle model tests, applications, case studies, field trials and experimental results;
• Control, modeling and simulation;
• Communication systems;
• Machine learning methods (least square, regularization methods, neural networks, Kalman filter, etc.) and their applications in marine vehicles;
• Path following, path planning, trajectory planning and automatic collision avoidance;
• Applications of artificial intelligent (AI) / machine learning (ML) in autonomous marine networks;
• Underwater localization, navigation and tracking;
• Underwater sensors and sensor networks;
• Machine learning methods for marine robotics;
• Intelligent and adaptive control architectures.

We look forward to receiving your contributions to bring together the latest developments in this area within this Special Issue of JMSE.

Sincerely,

Dr. Mai The Vu
Prof. Dr. Hyeung-Sik Choi
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 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

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. Journal of Marine Science and Engineering 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 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.