IEEE SMC: Systems, Man, & Cybernetics Society

Special Issues

Jump to: Upcoming Special Issues.

General Guidelines

This set of general guidelines is aimed to help potential Guest Editors (GEs) to initiate and to complete the editing of a special issue (SI). When proposing a special issue, GEs are advised to consult the scope of IEEE Transactions on Cybernetics (TC) to assess topic suitability. The TC Editor-in-Chief (EiC), the TC associate editors (AEs), and the IEEE Systems, Man and Cybernetics Society (SMCS) Vice President for Cybernetics are good resources to help potential GEs with addressing topic suitability.

Once the GEs have decided to propose a special issue, they are to provide the EiC with the following material:

  • A brief description of the scope of the proposed special issue
  • A brief description of the state-of-the-art in the proposed area and justification for why the proposed SI could be of interest to the TC readership (including what gaps there are in the published literature)
  • Please note that the GEs will be expected to write an editorial that will lead the rest of the papers in the SI. This description should be written with an eye toward that editorial.
  • A brief biography for each Guest Editor with emphasis on research experience and previous editorial experience. Please note that the SMC Society strives for geographic diversity in the set of SI GEs.
  • A Call for Papers (CFP): a draft one-page CFP which includes a brief description of the proposed SI and pertinent deadlines (with suggested dates for initial submissions, notification of first review, revised submissions, notification of final review, final manuscript, expected publication
  • Names of possible contributors (if available at the time of submission)

The EiC makes a decision as to the acceptance of the proposal after consultation with current AEs whose areas of expertise coincide or significantly overlap with the main subject of the SI. Additional material could be requested as part of this process.

Once the SI’s acceptance decision has been made, the CFP will be published in TC. The GEs will be encouraged to promote the SI using additional appropriate communication means.

The GEs will be given AE access to the manuscript submission website in order to manage the reviewing of submissions. Each manuscript should be reviewed according to the general TC process.

Please note that papers written by the GEs (with the exception of the editorial mentioned above) will be discouraged by the EiC. However, they could be considered for other issues of TC.

Please note that once the GEs make a final recommendation to accept manuscripts as part of the SI, the EiC will coordinate with the GE(s) as the final decision is made by EiC and communicated to the authors.

Upcoming

Special Issue on “New Generation of Artificial Intelligence for Intelligent Monitoring and Maintenance of Complex Systems”

Machine learning methodologies, including reinforcement learning, deep learning, Bayesian inference, and brain-inspired learning, have achieved remarkable breakthroughs in diverse fields such as speech recognition, computer vision, natural language processing, and business analytics. Consequently, substantial strides have been made within the process industry community for monitoring and maintenance in the intelligent inspection and maintenance of complex systems due to their excellent ability to discover hidden features. However, with the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence technology and the unique characteristics of industrial processes, significant challenges have surfaced, necessitating further exploration of new generation of artificial intelligence as well as its in-depth studies.

Industrial processes, which are typically complex systems, tend to generate large-scale, high-velocity, and diverse measurement datasets, posing challenges for traditional monitoring and maintenance techniques. Hence, the critical tasks of feature selection and dimension reduction become paramount to extract pertinent signals and eliminate redundant information, thereby influencing algorithmic performance. Moreover, the efficiency and computational speed of learning algorithms are crucial due to the rapid influx of data and the real-time nature of target value requirements. Ensuring statistical robustness and reliability is equally vital as traditional analytical techniques can be overwhelmed by vast amounts of data. The emergence of diverse data types further complicates matters, necessitating the development of practical tools capable of handling multi-type data problems effectively. Addressing these formidable challenges requires the development of efficient learning algorithms tailored to exploit specific characteristics of target processes.

This special issue aims to gather and present recent advancements in learning-based monitoring and maintenance methodologies. Contributions encompassing both theoretical insights and practical applications in domains such as large-scale industrial processes, industrial mechatronics, fermentation processes, network-supported industries, cyber-physical systems, and other diverse applications are particularly encouraged.

Guest Editors:

Initial manuscript submission deadline: May 31, 2025

Special Issue on Monitoring and Control in Cyber-Physical Systems: Security, Resilience, and Privacy

Guest Editors:

  • Prof. Bin Jiang, Nanjing Aeronautics and Astronautics, China, [email protected]
  • Prof. Marios M. Polycarpou, KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence, University of Cyprus, Cyprus, [email protected]
  • Prof. Thomas Parisini, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, [email protected]
  • Dr. Kangkang Zhang, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, [email protected]
  • Dr. Hamed Rezaee, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, [email protected]
  • Dr. Andreas Kasis, KIOS Research and Innovation Center of Excellence, University of Cyprus, Cyprus, [email protected]

Timetable:

    • Paper submission deadline:1 July 2024
    • First round of review: 1 October 2024
    • Final round review:31 December 2024
    • Final acceptance notice: 15 January 2025
    • Scheduled Publication: May or June Issue, 2025
  • TCYB_Special_Issue_Call_for_Papers

Special Issue on “Robust Cooperative Control for Heterogeneous Nonlinear Multi-Agent Systems”

In recent years, with the recent advancements of computing, communication, sensing, learning theories and methods and control techniques, cooperative control for multi-agent systems has become a global hot topic in the cybernetic community due to its broad application prospects in many fields, including autonomous satellites formations, drag reduction, load transportation and so on. Although cooperative control of homogeneous MASs, with identical system dynamics for both follower nodes and the leader node, is relatively less challenging to design and analysis, heterogeneous multi-agent systems are more practical and general. For example, many industrial manufacturing processes rely on cooperation of different types of robotic manipulators.

In order to ensure that the emergent behavior can have the features of low cost, high scalability and flexibility, great robustness, and easy maintenance, distributed control theory and technology has always been a cutting-edge but difficult research focus. How to design more advanced distributed cooperative control approaches for heterogeneous multi-agent systems with nonidentical dynamics is a hot topic of current academia and industry. In addition, the uncertainties and nonlinear dynamics inextricably exist in the agent dynamics, which heavily increases the difficulty to investigate the cooperative control for heterogeneous multi-agent system.

The special issue focuses on the latest research results of robust cooperative control for heterogeneous nonlinear multi-agent systems. This special issue provides a platform to promote interdisciplinary research and to share the latest developments in related fields.

Guest Editors:

Initial manuscript submission deadline: March 31, 2023

Download the Call for Papers (PDF).

 

Special Issue on “Industrial Metaverse for Smart Manufacturing”

The metaverse is an iteration of the Internet as a single, universal and immersive virtual world that is facilitated by the use of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR), extended reality (XR), multisensory extended reality, and simulated reality, which is a component of cyber-physical-social systems. Metaverse is a process of virtualization and digitization of the real world by artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, and digital twins technologies, which has wide applications to video games, tourism, autonomous vehicles, and industries. As a significant component of economy, industry is under the transformation towards intelligent operation, greening and digitalization. For example, the current status of process industry does not meet the demand of this future vision, in which hybrid modeling, autonomous control, dynamic scheduling, intelligent decision-making, security/safety control and predictive maintenance still need further development. Hence, it is urgent to consider the industrial metaverse to promote the upgrading of industry towards intelligent operation, greening and digitalization. For example, since the physical system is geographically distributed, massive data from life cycle required to be analyzed, understood, and then used for optimization of decision-making, security/safety management, and remote maintenance, which is difficult to achieve by traditional technologies. Considering the advantages of metaverse, it is promising to establish industrial metaverse for industrial manufacturing, which covers the life cycle based on industrial Internet, artificial intelligence and other modern information technologies. The inclusion of industrial metaverse will guide the efficient operation of the physical industry, empower all aspects and scenarios of the industry, promote the high-quality development of the industry, and further upgrade the intelligent manufacturing.

The main focus of this special issue will be on the application of industrial metaverse to the industrial manufacturing. The targeted audience includes both academic researchers and industrial practitioners. It is aimed to provide a springboard to facilitate interdisciplinary researches and share most recent developments in various related fields.

Guest Editors:

Initial manuscript submission deadline: January 31, 2023

Download the Call for Papers (PDF).