Advanced Intelligent Control and Automation in Industrial 4.0 Era

Dear Colleagues,

“Human-centricity” has emerged as a defining feature of the next stage of Industry 4.0, which means that intelligent manufacturing has entered a new transformation stage: from focusing on reducing the physical labor of operators to reducing their mental labor, from prioritizing shareholders to stakeholders, and the rise in value-driven manufacturing relative to technology-driven manufacturing. Two technological advancements play a crucial role in advanced manufacturing: intelligent control and automation. The ways to achieve the goals of Industry 4.0 include creating and implementing advanced automation technologies that are related to the design of control systems in a broader sense. In addition, intelligent control will further elevate automation technology, replacing operators with artificial intelligence for decision-making.

Advanced intelligent control and automation have demonstrated their enormous potential through successful implementation in various fields of the industry. They can be argued to have a considerable impact on the progress of the global promotion of Industry 4.0. Therefore, this Special Issue places importance on advanced intelligent control and automation. We would like to invite submissions of high-quality manuscripts from researchers, engineers, and industry professionals for publication in this Special Issue. The manuscripts should be unpublished and report significant research progress. The key criteria for paper acceptance will be novelty. Manuscripts reporting experimental proofs, results, and lessons learned are strongly encouraged. Review papers on the state of the art of different topics related to advanced intelligent control and automation are also welcome. The main topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Automation control systems;
• Manufacturing execution system;
• Advanced manufacturing technologies;
• Digital twins and the industrial metaverse;
• Enterprise resource planning;
• Artificial intelligence;
• Intelligent industrial robotics;
• Robot and computer-integrated manufacturing.

Prof. Dr. Hongfeng Wang
Dr. Bo Zhou
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. Electronics 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 2400 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 manufacturing
• advanced intelligent control
• automation
• industry 4.0
• robotics
• manufacturing execution system