Information Sciences will publish original, innovative and creative research results. A smaller number of timely tutorial and surveying contributions will be published from time to time.

The journal is designed to serve researchers, developers, managers, strategic planners, graduate students and others interested in state-of-the art research activities in information, knowledge engineering and intelligent systems. Readers are assumed to have a common interest in information science, but with diverse backgrounds in fields such as engineering, mathematics, statistics, physics, computer science, cell biology, molecular biology, management science, cognitive science, neurobiology, behavioural sciences and biochemistry.

The journal publishes high-quality, refereed articles. It emphasizes a balanced coverage of both theory and practice. It fully acknowledges and vividly promotes a breadth of the discipline of Informations Sciences.

Topics include:

Foundations of Information Science:
Information Theory, Mathematical Linguistics, Automata Theory, Cognitive Science, Theories of Qualitative Behaviour, Artificial Intelligence, Computational Intelligence, Soft Computing, Semiotics, Computational Biology and Bio-informatics.

Implementations and Information Technology:
Intelligent Systems, Genetic Algorithms and Modelling, Fuzzy Logic and Approximate Reasoning, Artificial Neural Networks, Expert and Decision Support Systems, Learning and Evolutionary Computing, Expert and Decision Support Systems, Learning and Evolutionary Computing, Biometrics, Moleculoid Nanocomputing, Self-adaptation and Self-organisational Systems, Data Engineering, Data Fusion, Information and Knowledge, Adaptive ad Supervisory Control, Discrete Event Systems, Symbolic / Numeric and Statistical Techniques, Perceptions and Pattern Recognition, Design of Algorithms, Software Design, Computer Systems and Architecture Evaluations and Tools, Human-Computer Interface, Computer Communication Networks and Modelling and Computing with Words

Applications:
Manufacturing, Automation and Mobile Robots, Virtual Reality, Image Processing and Computer Vision Systems, Photonics Networks, Genomics and Bioinformatics, Brain Mapping, Language and Search Engine Design, User-friendly Man Machine Interface, Data Compression and Text Abstraction and Summarization, Virtual Reality, Finance and Economics Modelling and Optimisation

Special Issue on Secure and Smart Autonomous Multi-Robot Systems
Submission Date: 2021-02-01

Past years have witnessed the revolutionary development of the smart robotic-related technology. Benefiting from the advances in mechanics, sensors, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) systems, a variety of powerful robotic agents have been designed to perform different tasks autonomously, ranging from space exploration to daily life housework to manufacturing. Nowadays, a promising research direction is the distributed multi-robot system, where heterogeneous robots collaborate on one complex task.

Today, enhanced by the AI techniques especially the Deep Learning (DL), the research and application on the DL-based smart autonomous multi-robot systems are rapidly developed. However, the complexity in the robot systems inevitably enlarges the attack surface and brings new security challenges in the design and development of these robot applications. For instance, a lot of robotic agents are exposed to the public Internet with no or very weak authentication mechanisms. Hence, a remote adversary can easily break into the device and control it to do malicious tasks.

This special issue aims to security research of the smart autonomous multi-robot systems. Firstly, it will include novel research on the state-of-the-art attack techniques on the autonomous multi-robot systems. We will investigate the attack methods starting from both theoretical and practical aspects and pay attention to those attacks aiming at compromising the smart algorithms in these systems. Then, we will also evaluate the corresponding defense methods to protect the autonomous multi-robot systems against the attacks. We believe with the research proposed in this special issue, the security of the smart autonomous multi-robot systems can be significantly improved which will bring huge benefits for both academia and industry. The topics of the special issue include but not limited to the following scopes.

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to,

Novel Theories, Concepts, and Paradigms of the Smart Autonomous Multi-Robot Systems
Attack and Defense of Autonomous Vehicle Communication Systems
Security and Privacy Issues in the Autonomous Multi-Robot Systems
Autonomous IoT Systems Security and Privacy
Unmannered Aerial Vehicle Systems Balance of Security and Performance
Deep Learning Algorithms in Autonomous Multi-Robot Systems
Software/Hardware Level Security for Smart Autonomous Multi-Robot Systems
Intrusion Detection Systems for Autonomous Multi-Robot Systems
Attacks and Defenses on Smart Recognition Systems