Trends in Aircraft Autonomy and Intelligent Aerospace Systems

Aircraft have rapidly progressed in recent years in terms of autonomy, with an increased reliance on higher levels of automation and intelligent aerospace systems. In crewed aircraft, this evolution was partly motivated by the need to reduce pilot workloads and increase mission efficiency and safety. New aircraft vehicle designs such as electric vertical takeoff and landing systems (eVTOLs) for urban air mobility and uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) increasingly employ complex propulsion system configurations to fly missions with different levels of complexity. These missions will require further advances in aircraft autonomy and in application-oriented artificial intelligence, for various aircraft functions from energy management and monitoring to aircraft navigation and control as well as mission planning.

In this Research Topic, we are particularly interested in research on advancing autonomy, control, and mission efficiency and safety in electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft for urban air mobility, uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), electric aircraft, and highly automated crewed aircraft. The aim is to highlight academic developments and direct applications to the field.

Within this scope, papers covering a variety of themes are welcome, including:
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and/or machine learning (ML) for aircraft energy management and monitoring, fault diagnosis in aircraft subsystems and mechanisms, fault tolerant navigation and control, aircraft modelling, or parameter estimation
• Fault tolerant control of eVTOL
• UAV Path planning
• Optimal and robust navigation and control
• Aircraft parameter estimation using machine learning or system identification methods
• Aircraft navigation and mission planning in unknown environments
• Sensor fusion and simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) in UAV
• Novel automatic control systems in crewed aircraft
• Advanced control of aircraft mechanisms and subsystems (e.g. landing gears, thermal control)
• Aircraft motion estimation

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: autonomous aircraft, drones, eVTOL, machine learning, artificial intelligence

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.