Marine Robotic Systems [From the Guest Editors]

The marine environment is an exciting and challenging context for the robotics community. Autonomous surface vehicles (ASVs) or autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) face a demanding environment with poor perception and actuation capabilities in comparison with most ground-based robotics. In the case of the underwater scenario, for example, communications are complicated by the limited bandwidth, and the position measurement of the vehicles is not obvious. Both underwater and surface vehicles, moreover, suffer from the presence of current and wind disturbances that enhance the complexity of the dynamic control task.