The Conceptual Design Methodology for UAV: New Research and New Development

Dear Colleagues,

With the advancement of technology and its increasingly widespread application, UAVs have become a key technology in various fields, including aviation, agriculture, mapping, environmental monitoring, and logistics. Flight dynamics and control systems, UAV sensors and perception technologies, energy and power systems, advanced algorithms, and artificial intelligence together comprise the scientific background that new research and development in the field of UAV concept design primarily focus on. The importance of research in the field of the UAV concept design methodology is reflected in the technological and application aspects in a number of ways. (1) Increased efficiency and risk reduction: by designing more efficient and intelligent UAV systems, the efficiency and accuracy of mission execution can be improved while reducing human labor and risks. (2) Exploration of new application areas: the rapid development of UAVs provides opportunities for new application areas. (3) Driving technological innovation and industrial development. Therefore, research into the concept design methodology of UAVs has a significant scientific background and practical significance in advancing the development and application of UAV technology.

The goal of this Special Issue is to collect papers (original research papers and review papers) on innovative directions for drone perception, decision making, and control, new sensors, energy and propulsion systems, and the use of emerging AI technologies such as LLM in drones. This publication welcomes all kinds of papers that adhere to academic norms and do not involve legal conflicts. This includes, but is not limited to, review papers, theoretical research papers, and applied research papers.

This Special Issue will welcome manuscripts that connect to the following themes:

• Design and implementation of the hybrid aquatic aerial vehicle;
• New discoveries in UAV energy and power systems;
• Autonomous localization of UAVs under GPS-denied environment;
• Application of novel sensing technologies in UAVs;
• High-precision robust and fast maneuver control of UAVs;
• Autonomous/cooperative decision and planning for UAVs/swarms;
• New exploration of large models or new artificial intelligence technologies in the field of drones.

We look forward to receiving your original research articles and reviews.

Dr. Jie Li
Dr. Jinli Suo
Dr. Meng Guo
Dr. Min Chang
Dr. Zhaowei Ma
Dr. Changyun Wei
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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Drones is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly 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.

• unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)
• hybrid aquatic aerial vehicle (HAAV)
• smart materials and aircraft structures design for drones
• new energy and power systems for drones
• GPS-denied autonomous localization of UAVs
• robust and fast maneuver control for drones
• emergent behaviors in swarm
• large language model for swarm interaction