Trajectory Tracking and Control of Surface Vessels: From Theory to Autonomous Navigation

Dear Colleagues,

The maritime industry is undergoing a transformative shift toward autonomy, driven by advances in artificial intelligence, sensor fusion, and control theory. Precise trajectory tracking and intelligent motion control form the cornerstone of safe and efficient autonomous surface vessel (ASV) operations—from unmanned surface vehicles (USVs) conducting oceanographic surveys to large commercial ships navigating in congested waterways under maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS) frameworks.

Despite significant progress in control algorithms, critical challenges persist in real-world maritime environments characterized by nonlinear vessel dynamics, underactuation constraints, time-varying disturbances (waves, currents, wind), model uncertainties, and complex collision avoidance scenarios requiring compliance with International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs).

This Special Issue aims to gather cutting-edge research that bridges theoretical advances with practical implementation in surface vessel trajectory tracking and control. We invite original contributions addressing the full spectrum of challenges—from robust controller design under environmental disturbances to intelligent decision-making for collision avoidance in multi-vessel encounters. Particular interest is given to studies that integrate control theory with situational awareness, machine learning, and real-time optimization to enable reliable autonomous navigation in safety-critical maritime scenarios. We especially encourage submissions featuring experimental validation (simulation, practical testing, or full-scale sea trials) that demonstrate practical feasibility and performance improvements over existing approaches.

Contributions may address, but are not limited to, the following topics:

Advanced control architectures: Robust adaptive control, sliding mode control, model predictive control (MPC), backstepping control, and reinforcement learning-based controllers for trajectory tracking under model uncertainties and external disturbances.

Collision avoidance and COLREGs compliance: Decision-making algorithms for dynamic obstacle avoidance, multi-ship encounter scenarios, game-theoretic approaches, and interpretable AI for COLREGs-compliant maneuvering.

Intelligent navigation systems: Sensor fusion for situational awareness, perception-aware trajectory planning, risk-aware path planning in congested waters, and human–autonomy teaming for supervised autonomy.

Handling practical constraints: Control strategies addressing actuator saturation, state/input constraints, asymmetric output limitations, and fault-tolerant control for propulsion/rudder failures.

Special operational scenarios: Formation control and cooperative navigation for vessel fleets, berthing/docking control, dynamic positioning under severe sea states, and trajectory tracking for underactuated vessels.

Verification and validation: Real-time implementation on hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) platforms, field trials of autonomous vessels, safety assurance methodologies, and performance benchmarking against international standards.

Cross-disciplinary innovations: Integration of digital twin technology, cyber-physical security for control systems, and human factors in autonomous vessel command interfaces

Prof. Dr. Jinfen Zhang
Guest Editor

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.

• trajectory tracking control
• autonomous surface vessels
• collision avoidance
• COLREGs compliance
• robust control
• adaptive control
• underactuated marine vehicles
• model predictive control
• intelligent navigation
• maritime autonomy
• dynamic positioning
• formation control
• disturbance rejection
• nonlinear control systems
• maritime safety