Unmanned Systems

Unmanned Systems is a peer-reviewed journal published by World Scientific together with Beijing Institute of Technology Press, and its subject is the machines, software and control methods behind vehicles that carry no crew.《无人系统》由 World Scientific 与北京理工大学出版社联合出版，实行同行评议，题材是机上不载乘员的运载工具背后的机器本体、软件与控制方法。

Founded in 2013, the title reports a 2025 Journal Impact Factor of 1.9 and a five-year figure of 2.4, which places it 52nd among 88 journals in automation and control systems.该刊 2013 年创刊，2025 年影响因子 1.9，五年影响因子 2.4，在自动化与控制系统的 88 种期刊中列第 52 位。

Scope

• The remit follows the whole chain that turns a vehicle into an autonomous one, from the airframe or hull through power, sensing and communication to the point where a decision is made.范围沿着把载具变成自主系统的整条链条铺开，从机体或艇体起，经动力、感知与通信，直到作出决定的那一环。
• Hardware platforms are named by medium, so aerial, ground, surface and underwater craft all belong, and unconventional designs are admitted beside them.硬件平台按介质分列，空中、地面、水面与水下载具同属一列，非常规构型也并列其中。
• Software systems take in the autonomy stack itself, the middleware that moves data between modules, and the ground stations that operators sit in front of.软件系统把自主栈本身纳入，包括在模块之间搬运数据的中间件，以及操作员面对的地面站。
• Energy systems cover generation, storage and management on board, a subject that settles endurance and therefore the missions a platform can be sent on.能源系统涵盖机上的发电、储能与管理，这一项决定续航，也决定平台能被派去执行什么任务。
• Modeling and control forms the largest block of the remit, running from vehicle dynamics and system identification to guidance laws and fault-tolerant controllers.建模与控制构成范围中最大的一块，从飞行器动力学与系统辨识，延伸到制导律与容错控制器。
• Communication systems include datalinks, ad hoc networks among vehicles, and the latency and bandwidth limits that decide what a formation can coordinate in real time.通信系统包括数据链与车间自组网，也包含决定编队能实时协同到什么程度的时延与带宽约束。
• Computer vision is treated as a subject in its own right, with detection, tracking, visual servoing and landing guidance among the recurring topics.计算机视觉自成一类，检测、跟踪、视觉伺服与着陆引导是反复出现的题目。
• Sensing and information processing stretch from inertial and satellite navigation through radar and lidar to the filters that turn raw returns into a usable state estimate.传感与信息处理从惯性与卫星导航起，经雷达与激光雷达，延伸到把原始回波变成可用状态估计的滤波环节。
• Navigation and path planning appear as a pair, since a route that ignores wind, terrain or traffic separation is of little use to an aircraft or a surface vessel.导航与路径规划成对出现，忽略风场、地形或间隔规定的航线，对飞行器与水面艇都没有用处。
• Computation is listed separately, which signals that onboard processors, embedded implementations and real-time budgets count as engineering subjects rather than afterthoughts.计算单独列出，说明机载处理器、嵌入式实现与实时预算被当作工程课题，而不作事后补充。
• Information fusion gathers the streams together, and multi-sensor estimation, target tracking and situation assessment are the shapes it usually takes in print.信息融合把各路数据汇到一处，多传感器估计、目标跟踪与态势评估是它在版面上常见的形态。
• Multi-agent systems cover formation flight, cooperative search, task allocation and consensus, the part of the field where several vehicles have to behave as one.多智能体系统涵盖编队飞行、协同搜索、任务分配与一致性，这是多台载具须协同如一的领域。
• Mission and task management sits above the control loops and deals with replanning, contingency handling and the human authority that stays in the chain.任务管理位于控制回路之上，处理重规划、突发情况应对，以及链条中保留的人工权限。
• Machine intelligence and artificial intelligence are named outright, and case studies of innovative applications are invited as a category of their own.机器智能与人工智能被直接点名，创新应用的案例分析则单列一类约稿。
• The enumeration is offered as indicative rather than exhaustive, and work that joins control theory to mechanics, electronics or computer science is explicitly welcome.这份清单标为示意而非穷尽，把控制理论与机械、电子或计算机科学接起来的工作明确受欢迎。

History

• Volume 1, number 1 appeared in June 2013, opened by a two-page editorial that introduced the new title and carried three signatures.第 1 卷第 1 期于 2013 年 6 月面世，开篇是两页的创刊社论，介绍这份新刊，落款处有三人署名。^[1]
• Those signatures were Ben M. Chen, Lihua Xie and Siva Banda, and the first two are still listed as co-editors-in-chief on the masthead.署名为（Ben M. Chen）、（Lihua Xie）与（Siva Banda），前两位至今仍以联合主编的身份列在编委名单上。^[1]
• Pages 3 to 19 of that same issue reported flight tests of an obstacle avoidance system for a rotary-wing unmanned aircraft, built jointly by Georgia Tech and a Korean defence laboratory.同一期的第 3 至 19 页报告了旋翼无人机避障系统的飞行试验，工作由佐治亚理工学院与韩国一家国防实验室合作完成。^[2]
• A Massachusetts Institute of Technology group followed at pages 41 to 58 with mission planning for teams of aircraft, where communication rather than fuel set the limit on cooperation.随后是麻省理工学院一个团队的第 41 至 58 页论文，讨论机群的动态任务规划，制约协同的是通信而非燃料。^[2]
• Cooperative search and exploration in robotic networks closed the issue at pages 121 to 142, with Lihua Xie among the authors years before he became an editor.机器人网络的协同搜索与探索收束该期，占第 121 至 142 页，作者之一正是后来出任主编的（Lihua Xie）。^[3]
• Two numbers made the first volume, and volume 2 settled into four issues a year, a rhythm the journal kept for the nine volumes that followed.首卷只出两期，第 2 卷起改为每年四期，此后九个卷次一直沿用这一节奏。
• Volume 12 raised the count to six numbers, and volumes 13 and 14 have held to it, which makes the journal bimonthly in present practice.第 12 卷把期数提到六期，第 13 与第 14 卷沿用下来，刊物按现行做法即为双月刊。
• World Scientific has published the title from Singapore since the launch, while the editorial office works alongside the university press in Beijing.World Scientific 自创刊起在新加坡出版该刊，编辑部则与北京的高校出版社一同办公。
• Beijing Institute of Technology is the sponsoring institution, and the domestic registration number CN 10-1779/TP records that arrangement.主办单位为北京理工大学，国内统一连续出版物号 CN 10-1779/TP 记录了这层归属。
• In 2019 the title entered the China Science and Technology Journal Excellence Action Plan, in the stream reserved for new journals with a high starting point.2019 年该刊进入中国科技期刊卓越行动计划，归属高起点新刊一档。
• A further listing came in 2024, when the journal was added to the Chinese Science and Technology Core Journals set maintained by the national institute for scientific and technical information.2024 年又添一项收录，刊物被纳入中国科技核心期刊，该名录由国家科技信息机构维护。
• Coverage in the Emerging Sources Citation Index brought a Journal Impact Factor, and the 2025 release puts the title in the third quartile of automation and control systems.被 Emerging Sources Citation Index 收录之后，刊物有了影响因子，2025 年版把它放在自动化与控制系统类目的第三分区。
• That number stood at 3.0 in 2023, fell to 2.4 a year later and reached 1.9 in the 2025 release, so the title now sits below its level of three years earlier.该数值 2023 年为 3.0，次年降至 2.4，2025 年版为 1.9，如今低于三年前的水平。
• About 148 papers were counted in the latest year, total citations stand near 883, and a cited half-life of 3.4 years points to a literature that is still young.最近一个统计年度计得约 148 篇论文，总被引接近 883 次，被引半衰期 3.4 年，文献整体仍属年轻。
• CiteScore places the journal in the first quartile of four subject categories, namely control and optimisation, aerospace engineering, automotive engineering and control and systems engineering.CiteScore 把该刊放在四个学科类目的第一分区，即控制与优化、航空航天工程、车辆工程以及控制与系统工程。
• Around 734 DOIs are registered under the title, 394 of them for current content, and every suffix begins with s2301385 after the 10.1142 prefix.该刊名下注册了约 734 个 DOI，其中 394 个属于现行内容，后缀在 10.1142 前缀之后一律以 s2301385 起头。

Editors

• Chen Jie, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, holds the editor-in-chief post and is now a vice president of the academy as well as a professor at Harbin Institute of Technology.主编为（Chen Jie），中国工程院院士，现任该院副院长，同时是哈尔滨工业大学的教授。
• His research concerns multi-index optimisation and control of complex systems and the cooperative control of multi-agent teams, which is close to the centre of the journal's remit.他的研究集中于复杂系统的多指标优化与控制，以及多智能体团队的协同控制，与刊物的重心相近。
• Ben M. Chen of the Chinese University of Hong Kong is co-editor-in-chief, with a research record in robust control and in unmanned aircraft systems.香港中文大学的（Ben M. Chen）担任联合主编，研究履历落在鲁棒控制与无人机系统两端。
• Lihua Xie of Nanyang Technological University shares that position, and his work on sensor networks, estimation and networked control covers the information side of the field.南洋理工大学的（Lihua Xie）同任联合主编，他在传感器网络、估计与网络化控制方面的工作覆盖了这一领域的信息一侧。
• Siva Banda completed the trio of signatories on the 2013 inaugural editorial, a name that belongs to the founding generation of the title.（Siva Banda）是 2013 年创刊社论的第三位署名者，属于刊物的创刊一代。
• The editorial office is kept by the university press in Beijing, and routine correspondence goes to a dedicated mailbox rather than to any editor's laboratory.编辑部设在北京的高校出版社，日常函件寄往专用信箱，不寄给某位主编的实验室。
• Manuscripts are submitted through Editorial Manager at editorialmanager.com/us, the address the journal gives in place of an email route for new papers.稿件经 Editorial Manager 提交，入口为 editorialmanager.com/us，新稿不走电子信箱。
• The journal describes a review process that matches each manuscript to closely fitting referees and keeps the interval short.刊物自述的评审流程把每篇稿件交给研究方向贴合的审稿人，并尽量压缩往返时间。
• The publisher's page lists the databases that carry the title, among them ESCI, EI, Scopus, CSCD and WAJCI, a spread that reaches both the citation indexes and the Chinese assessment machinery.出版方页面列出收录该刊的数据库，包括 ESCI、EI、Scopus、CSCD 与 WAJCI，覆盖面同时伸向引文索引与国内的科研评价体系。
• Records reach Crossref before a volume and issue are assigned to them, which is what online-first publication looks like from the outside.记录先进入 Crossref，卷期号随后才落到记录上，从外部看到的先行在线发布即是这般模样。
• The top of the masthead draws on Singapore, Hong Kong and mainland China at once, an arrangement that mirrors the joint imprint behind the title.编委顶层同时取自新加坡、香港与内地的机构，这一格局与刊名背后的联合出版安排相合。