Artificial Intelligence-Enabled Robotics and Wireless Power Transfer: Intelligent Control, Autonomy, and Emerging Applications

Recent advances in robotics are rapidly expanding the boundaries of intelligent machines, from magnetic and soft robots to bioinspired, micro/nanorobotic, medical, and wirelessly powered robotic systems. These robots are increasingly expected to operate in complex, dynamic, and unstructured environments where conventional model-based design and control alone may be insufficient. Artificial intelligence, including machine learning, reinforcement learning, computer vision, multimodal sensing, and data-driven modeling, offers new opportunities to improve robot perception, planning, control, adaptation, and decision-making. Meanwhile, wireless power transfer and energy management technologies are becoming critical for enabling untethered, miniaturized, implantable, and long-duration robotic systems. Despite significant progress, challenges remain in integrating intelligent algorithms with robot hardware, actuation mechanisms, sensing systems, wireless power delivery, safety requirements, and real-world applications. This Research Topic aims to highlight emerging advances at the intersection of artificial intelligence, robotics, and wireless power technologies.

The goal of this Research Topic is to provide a broad platform for researchers working on AI-enabled and wirelessly powered robotic systems, with particular emphasis on magnetic robots, soft robots, bioinspired robots, micro/nanorobots, medical robots, and autonomous robotic platforms. We welcome original research, reviews, perspectives, and methods papers that address the design, modeling, control, sensing, wireless power transfer, energy management, learning, and application of intelligent robotic systems. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, AI-based control algorithms, reinforcement learning, path planning, swarm intelligence, robot perception, magnetic actuation, wireless power transfer, soft robotic design, bioinspired locomotion, low-power electronics, implantable and untethered robotic systems, medical diagnosis and therapy, minimally invasive robotics, and simulation-to-reality transfer. By bringing together contributions from robotics, artificial intelligence, biomedical engineering, materials science, wireless power systems, control theory, and mechatronics, this Research Topic seeks to promote interdisciplinary discussion and accelerate the development of robust, adaptive, autonomous, and sustainable robotic technologies for real-world applications.

This Research Topic welcomes submissions covering, but not limited to, the following areas:
1. AI-based modeling, planning, and control of robotic systems
2. Wireless power transfer and energy management for robotic systems
3. Magnetic, soft, bioinspired, and micro/nanorobots
4. Reinforcement learning, imitation learning, and adaptive control for robotics
5. Robot perception, sensing, computer vision, and multimodal feedback
6. Low-power electronics and untethered robotic platforms
7. Implantable, ingestible, and minimally invasive medical robots
8. Swarm robotics and multi-robot coordination
9. Digital twins, simulation platforms, and sim-to-real transfer
10. Safety, reliability, and translational challenges of AI-enabled robotic systems

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
• General Commentary
• 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
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Review
• Systematic Review
• Technology and Code

Keywords: Artificial intelligence; robotics; wireless power transfer; magnetic robotics; soft robotics; autonomous control; robot learning; medical robotics; microrobotics; intelligent systems

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.