Special Issue on Robotics in the Wild: Control & AI for Field, Planetary, and Exploration Robotics
Submission Date: 2026-03-31

Field, planetary, and exploration robotics is becoming a crucial area of research and application. These systems operate in remote, unstructured, and often extreme environments such as agricultural fields, deep-sea locations, disaster zones, and extraterrestrial surfaces including the Moon and Mars. They must deal with challenges such as uneven terrain, unpredictable weather, long communication delays, and strict energy limits.

This Special Issue focuses on the latest advances in control technologies and control-related AI for robotic systems operating in challenging, unstructured environments such as field, planetary, and exploration settings. Emphasizing robust perception, adaptive decision-making, and innovative control strategies, the contributions highlight how these robots achieve enhanced autonomy, resilience, and effectiveness in complex and uncertain real-world scenarios. The issue welcomes research that pushes the boundaries of robotic capabilities beyond traditional laboratory settings into practical, wild environments.

Applications include planetary rovers carrying out geological surveys, autonomous underwater vehicles mapping the seabed, agricultural robots performing precision farming, and inspection robots assessing damage in disaster areas. This Special Issue will collect contributions that advance both the theory and practice of intelligence-augmented control for exploration robotics, with a strong emphasis on results from real-world operations or realistic field trials.

Guest editors:

Dr. Chao Huang (Executive Guest Editor)
The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, Australia
Email: chao.huang@adelaide.edu.au

Dr. Manolo Garabini
University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy
Email: manolo.garabini@unipi.it

Prof. Xiaowei Luo
City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, SAR, China
Email: xiaowluo@cityu.edu.hk

Prof. Katharine Smith
University of Manchester, Manchester, UK
Email: kate.smith@manchester.ac.uk

Special issue information:

Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

    Robust and adaptive control for operation on uneven or unstructured terrain
    Navigation, path planning, and obstacle avoidance in GPS-denied or communication-constrained environments
    Guidance and control for lunar and Martian rover missions
    Terrain-adaptive locomotion and manipulation control for planetary rovers
    Navigation and path optimization for exploration rovers in extreme environments
    Cooperative control of heterogeneous exploration robot teams (aerial, ground, underwater, space)
    Perception–control integration for autonomous exploration
    Sensor fusion for mapping, localization, terrain classification, and environment understanding
    Fault-tolerant and resilient control in safety-critical missions
    Human–robot interaction for teleoperation and supervisory control in remote or hazardous sites
    Energy-aware planning and control under strict resource constraints
    Learning-based enhancements to model predictive control and other advanced control frameworks
    Real-time control architectures for multi-modal sensing and actuation systems
    Verification and validation of control algorithms in simulated and physical testbeds
    Case studies from field deployments, planetary exploration missions, underwater operations, and disaster-response scenarios

Manuscript submission information:

Manuscripts should be submitted via the Control Engineering Practice online submission system (https://www.editorialmanager.com/conengprac/default.aspx.) by selecting the Article Type of “VSI: Robotics in the Wild”. All submitted manuscripts will be screened by the editorial office and peer reviewed according to the usual standards of this journal, and will be evaluated on the basis of originality, quality, and relevance to this Special Issue.

Please note that Control Engineering Practice publishes papers that make significant contributions to the application of control techniques and are expected to present practically relevant results based on sound theory. CEP is an applications-oriented journal. We encourage submissions that provide application-related insights, demonstrate practical relevance, and include strong industrial or field examples. If only simulations are presented, they must be validated on models of real systems or in realistic trials. The benefits of new methods must be clearly shown and compared with existing approaches.

Important Dates

    Submission deadline: March 31, 2026​
    Acceptance deadline: October 31, 2026

For more information or questions, please feel free to contact the Guest Editors.

Keywords:

Intelligence-Augmented Control, Field robotics, Human-Robot Interaction, Remote and Hazardous Environment Robotics