Special issue on “Bio-inspired computing for autonomous vehicles”

Article Type: Guest editorialFrom:International Journal of Intelligent Computing and Cybernetics, Volume 5, Issue3

Autonomous aerial and ground vehicles are intelligent robotic systems thatcan assist or replace humans in hostile and uncertain environments. They alsooffer a wide range of possible applications in defense, civil search and rescue,environmental modeling and space exploration. Autonomy of such a vehiclerequires a form of basic intelligence. Bio-inspired computing represents amodern approach for generating intelligent systems that focuses on improvingcontrol robustness, adaptability, and the emergent organization of the machine.This special issue aims at exhibiting the latest research achievement, findingsand ideas in autonomous vehicles that benefit from bio-inspired algorithms andmethods.

The special issue aims to provide the readers a diverse collection of methodsaddressing various aspects of autonomous vehicles, rather than focus on oneparticular approach or problem area. The eight papers selected for this specialissue provide original designs, ideas and some involve in-depth analyticalfindings. Contributions include work on the following techniques:

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  2D splinegon for collective terrain mapping for co-operative UAVs;

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  inverse reinforcement learning;

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  emerging swarm traffic;

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  discrete-time based sliding-mode control for robotic manipulators;

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  bio-inspired control of vehicles;

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  robust and adaptive approach to controlling spacecraft re-entry;

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  EMMAE failure detection system; and

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  sliding-mode control for miniature helicopters.

In addition to the diversity in the techniques, the articles in this specialissue also represent different autonomous vehicle applications ranging fromground robots and aircrafts to Earth re-entry vehicles. We expect themulti-disciplinary research techniques presented in this special issue wouldallow the readers to enhance the quality of their own research. Some details ofeach article are described as follows.

The first paper “Terrain based co-operative UAV mapping of complexobstacles using 2-D splinegon” authored by Lazaruset al. presentsa recently proposed algorithm in terrain based co-operative UAV mapping of theunknown complex obstacle in a stationary environment where the complex obstaclesare represented as curved in nature. The second paper “A survey of inversereinforcement learning techniques” by Zhifei and Joo presents an overviewover existing techniques that accomplish imitation learning by recovering theteachers cost function. The third paper “Emerging robot swarm traffic”(Penders and Alboul) examines emerging behaviors of the ant swarm traffic andapplies the techniques to mobile robots. The fourth paper “Discrete-timebased sliding-mode control of robot manipulators” by Majidabad and Shandizproposes new features in the sliding-mode control technique which work indiscrete time domain. The fifth paper “Real-time, decentralized andbio-inspired topology control for holonomic autonomous vehicles” authoredby S¸ahin and Uyar presents a new approach to tackle control problems thatare over-constrained. The sixth paper “DSC-backstepping based robustadaptive LS-SVM control for near space vehicle’s reentry attitude” byZhanget al. provides a very involved concerted approaches possiblyenabling better re-entry attitude control. The seventh paper “EMMAEfailure detection system and failure evaluation over flight performance” byQiuet al. describes research in the fault detection and isolation(FDI) and evaluation the reduction to performance after failures occurred in theflight control system (FCS) during its mission operation. The final (eighth)paper “Chattering-free sliding mode control with unidirectional auxiliarysurfaces for miniature helicopters” (Fuet al.) proposes achattering-free sliding-mode control scheme with unidirectional auxiliarysurfaces (UAS-SMC) for small miniature autonomous helicopters (Trex 250).

The call for papers for this special issue received 15 submissions, and eachsubmission was peer-reviewed by at least two experts in the related field. Afterthe revisions were made according to the feedback, eight manuscripts wereaccepted to appear in the issue. The Guest Editors would like to thank theauthors and the reviewers for their contributions to this special issue.Moreover, we are grateful for theInternational Journal of IntelligentComputing and Cybernetics for the opportunity to publish and the journaleditors for their insightful feedback to this special issue, their support andguidance in the publication.

About the Guest Editors

Dr Yang Gao, B.Eng(1st Hon), PhD, SMIEEE, FHEA, is theSenior Lecturer in Spacecraft Autonomy and heads the AI and Autonomy Groupwithin Surrey Space Centre at University of Surrey in the UK. Dr Gao and herresearch team specialize in computer vision, machine learning and biomimeticswith applications to space robotics and autonomous systems. She is also activelyinvolved in space mission design and promoting the Surrey small-sat approachwithin missions like ExoMars, MoonLITE, Moonraker, LunarEX/NET, and MarcoPolo-R, etc. She is a co-author of one text book on fuzzy neural networktechniques, five book chapters, over 70 technical papers in internationallyrefereed journals and conference proceedings, and an invited session chair,speaker and lecturer at various international meetings and summer schools.

Professor Dr Jan Peters,Dipl.-Ing., Dipl.-Inform., MSc CS,MSc AME, PhD is a Full Professor (W3) at Technische Universität Darmstadtheading the Intelligent Autonomous Systems group at the same time as the RobotLearning Lab at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems. Between2007-2011, Jan Peters was a senior research scientist and group leader at theMax Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics. Jan Peters is a computerscientist (holding a German MSc from FernUni Hagen, an MSc and PhD fromUniversity of Southern California), an electrical engineer (receiving a GermanMSc in EE from TU München), and a mechanical engineer (with a MSc inMechanical Engineering from USC). Jan has held visiting research positions atATR, Japan and at National University of Singapore during his graduate studies.Jan Peters’ PhD thesis received the 2007 Dick Volz Best US Robotics PhDRunner-Up Award. Jan Peters’ research interests span a large variety oftopics in robotics, machine learning and biomimetic systems with a strong focuson learning of motor skills. Jan Peters has co-founded the IEEE RAS TechnicalCommittee on Robot Learning.

Professor Antonios Tsourdosobtained a BEng on Electronic,Control and Systems Engineering from the University of Sheffield (1995), an MScon Systems Engineering from Cardiff University (1996) and a PhD on NonlinearRobust Missile Autopilot Design and Analysis from Cranfield University (1999).He was appointed Head of the Autonomous Systems Group in 2007. ProfessorTsourdos was a member of Team Stellar, the winning team for the UK MoD GrandChallenge (2008) and the IET Innovation Award (Category Team, 2009). Antonios isan editorial board member of the Proceedings of the IMechE Part G Journal ofAerospace Engineering, the International Journal of Systems Science and the IEEETransactions on Instrumentation and Measurement. Professor Tsourdos is a memberof the AAD KTN National Technical Committee on Autonomous Systems. ProfessorTsourdos is also a member of the IFAC Technical Committee on Aerospace Control,the IFAC Technical Committee on Intelligent Autonomous Vehicles, the AIAAUnmanned Systems Program Committee, and the IEEE Control System SocietyTechnical Committee on Aerospace Control (TCAC). Professor Tsourdos is also amember of IET Robotics & Mechatronics Executive Team. His research interestsinclude guidance, control and navigation of autonomous vehicles, multi-vehiclesystems, data and information fusion.

Yang Gao, Jan Peters, Antonios TsourdosGuestEditors