Visual Perception enabling Autonomous Navigation Call for Papers

Dear Colleagues,
 
We are pleased to invite submissions to the 
Special Issue "Visual Perception enabling Autonomous Navigation (VP-NAV)" 
of Image and Vision Computing. 
 
Autonomous navigation is playing an increasingly important role across
intelligent transportation, environmental monitoring, smart
agriculture, service robotics, and industrial automation. Visual
perception represents a key enabling technology, allowing autonomous
systems to sense, interpret, and interact with complex and dynamic
environments. This Special Issue focuses on recent advances in visual
perception technologies supporting autonomous navigation, including
onboard and infrastructure-based sensing, robust scene understanding,
multimodal perception, real-time processing, and collaborative sensing
across distributed systems.
 
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
* Visual perception systems for autonomous vehicles, mobile robots,
drones, and automated machinery;

* Object detection, tracking, classification, and scene understanding
for navigation;

* Multi-modal sensor fusion (e.g., combining vision with LiDAR, radar,
and IMU) for autonomous navigation;

* Learning-based perception systems (e.g., deep learning and
foundation models) for autonomous navigation;

* Distributed visual sensing in smart cities, factories, and
agricultural fields;

* Vision-based SLAM, mapping, and localization in dynamic or
unstructured environments;

* Real-time perception and edge computing for onboard and distributed
systems;

* Collaborative and V2X-enabled perception between vehicles, robots,
and infrastructure;

* Visual perception for service and assistive robotics in indoor and
semi-structured environments;

* Robust visual perception under challenging conditions (e.g., poor
lighting, adverse weather, and occlusions);

* Data generation, simulation environments, and benchmark datasets for
training and evaluation.
 
Manuscript Submission

The Special Issue is open for submissions from September 1, 2026, to
December 31, 2026. Manuscripts must be submitted through the Elsevier
submission system for Image and Vision Computing. During the
submission process, authors should select the article type: “VSI:
VP-NAV”. All manuscripts will undergo the journal's standard
peer-review process and will be evaluated according to originality,
significance, technical quality, and clarity. Authors are requested to
prepare their manuscripts in accordance with the Image and Vision
Computing Guide for Authors and the journal's editorial
requirements. Accepted articles will be made available online
following acceptance and will be published in a regular issue of the
journal while also being simultaneously collected within the online
Special Issue. Official information regarding the Special Issue,
manuscript preparation, and submission procedure is available through
the ScienceDirect Special Issue page and the Image and Vision
Computing submission platform.
 
Guest Editors
Antonio Greco - Executive Guest Editor - Tenure-Track Associate Professor
University of Salerno, Italy
Email: agreco@unisa.it
 
Modesto Castrillón-Santana - Guest Editor - Full Professor
Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain
Email: modesto.castrillon@ulpgc.es
 
Giovanna Castellano - Guest Editor - Full Professor
University of Bari - Aldo Moro, Italy
Email: giovanna.castellano@uniba.it
 
Bruno Vento - Guest Editor - Post-doc Researcher
Consorzio Interuniversitario Nazionale per l'Informatica, Italy
Email: brunovento.it@gmail.com
 
We look forward to receiving your contributions and would appreciate
your help in sharing this CFP with colleagues and researchers who may
be interested in the Special Issue.
 
Best regards,
The Guest Editors