Navigation, Control and Mission Planning Advances for Safe, Efficient Autonomous Drones

Drones have considerably evolved in the last two decades across the air, ground and marine domains, with an increased emphasis on their safety, autonomy and performance. In the UK, advancing drone autonomy for commercial aerial vehicles was the main focus of a policy paper jointly developed by the UK government and the sector. More generally, recent research is increasingly focused on the challenges associated with vehicle motion planning, navigation and control to perform increasingly demanding tasks in challenging environments. Recent advances in artificial intelligence, including deep and reinforcement learning present new opportunities in this field but concerns remain due to the need to ensure safety with trustworthy and explainable solutions. This Reprint presents some of the latest advances in path planning, navigation and control for autonomous ground, aerial and marine vehicles in challenging or uncertain environments.