Affiliated with the Intelligent Autonomous Systems (IAS) Society

Robotics and Autonomous Systems will carry articles describing fundamental developments in the field of robotics, with special emphasis on autonomous systems. An important goal of this journal is to extend the state of the art in both symbolic and sensory based robot control and learning in the context of autonomous systems.

Robotics and Autonomous Systems will carry articles on the theoretical, computational and experimental aspects of autonomous systems, or modules of such systems.

Special Issue on the 12th European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR 2025)
Día de Entrega: 2026-04-20

The 12th European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR 2025) was held in Padua, Italy (2–5 September 2025). It is a premier biennial event in the field of mobile robotics, bringing together leading researchers on mobile robotics, human–robot interaction, perception, planning, and learning. ECMR has established itself as a recognised single-track conference featuring a rigorous peer-review process, high-quality technical programme, and strong international participation.

Guest editors:

Assist. Prof. Stefano Tortora (Executive Guest Editor), University of Padua, Padova, Italy; Email: stefano.tortora@unipd.it
Assoc. Prof. Nicola Bellotto, University of Padua, Padova, Italy; Email: nbellotto@dei.unipd.it
Prof. Antonios Gasteratos, Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece; Email: agaster@pme.duth.gr

Special issue information:

Mobile robotics has seen rapid progress in recent years, driven by advances in deep learning, large-scale simulation, and collaborative AI. This results in a growing demand for resilient, safe, and sustainable autonomous mobile robots across all service domains, including industry, agriculture, healthcare, and home, to mention but a few. In this context, the 12th European Conference on Mobile Robots (ECMR 2025) was held in Padua, Italy (2–5 September 2025). It is a premier biennial event in the field of mobile robotics, bringing together leading researchers on mobile robotics, human–robot interaction, perception, planning, and learning. ECMR has established itself as a recognised single-track conference featuring a rigorous peer-review process, high-quality technical programme, and strong international participation. This Special Issue will gather extended and substantially revised versions of the best papers presented at ECMR 2025. This collection aims at highlighting the cognitive capabilities of today’s and tomorrow’s mobile robots, emphasizing cognition, perception, interaction, and AI-enhanced autonomy, thus addressing both fundamental and societal challenges.

The Special Issue focuses on advances in mobile robotics, integrating perception, learning, and interaction to enable robust, safe, and intelligent autonomous systems. Topics include:

Mobile robot design: Wheeled and Legged Systems, Biomimetic Robotics, UAVs, USVs, UUVs, Sensors, Actuators, and Reconfigurable Robots
Perception and Cognition: Environment Perception, Semantic Mapping, Cognitive Architectures, Active and Interactive Perception, Scene Understanding, and Memory-based Approaches
Learning: Cognitive and Reinforcement Learning Systems, Imitation Learning, Learning-based Control, Adapting to Dynamic Environments, and Sim2Real
Cognitive Interaction: Human-Robot Teaming, Natural Language Interaction, Autonomous Decision-Making, Shared Autonomy, Safe Interaction, and Human-AI Collaboration
Planning and Control: Cognitive Planning, Exploration, Resilient Navigation Behaviors, Adaptive and Robust Control, and Learning-based Planning
Distributed Systems: Multi-Robot Systems, Networked Robots, Swarms, Coordination, Task and Resource Allocation
Applications: Cognitive Service Robots, Social Robotics, Industrial and Field Robots, Healthcare Robotics, and Intelligent Surveillance

Manuscript submission information:

Important dates:

    Submission Open Date: 15th December 2025
    Submission Deadline: 20th April 2026
    Editorial Acceptance Deadline: 20th August 2026

​Manuscripts must be submitted via the Robotics and Autonomous Systems online submission system (Editorial Manager®), Please select the article type “VSI: ECMR 2025” when submitting the manuscripts online.

Please refer to Guide for authors by Elsevier for information on submission.

All submitted papers under this call will undergo the standard review process of the journal.

For any further information, the authors may contact the Guest Editors.

Keywords:

mobile robotics; cognition; perception; interaction; AI-enhanced autonomy