Aim and Scope:
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Humans grasp and manipulate objects of many shapes, sizes, and weights, made of a great variety of materials. It is desirable that robots increase the degree of flexibility to successfully carry out these tasks. The objects can be located in environments with high variability or even unknown, where the scene and the objects located within it can change their pose and location. Therefore, mobile manipulators with high-speed visual sensing are required.

In contrast to a fixed-base robotic manipulator, an autonomous mobile manipulator overcomes the limitation of a constrained workspace. Combining a robotic manipulator with an autonomous vehicle allows combining the grasping skill of the first with the mobility capacity of the second, though increasing degrees of freedom greatly complicates planning and control tasks, especially if both structures work together. Besides, multiple sensors are required to obtain a precise location, such as GNSS receivers, LIDAR, cameras, or IMUs. All these sensing technologies help the robot in the location of objects, in its navigation to reach them, as well as the position control and the planning of manipulation tasks to grasp them. Mobile manipulation still has great challenges, for example in unknown, poorly structured, or dynamic environments in which high flexibility is required to carry out manipulation tasks. This is applicable not only to land vehicles with robotic arms, but also for !
both underwater and aerial manipulators. In all these cases, apart from the aforementioned sensors, the use of tactile and/or force sensors is recommended, though not necessary. Tactile sensing provides robotic manipulator with new capabilities in order to enable a more robust and precise grasp control, recognize the object in hand and manipulate it properly.

This Special Issue aims to cover advances in robotic mobile manipulation. Novel theoretical approaches or practical applications of all aspects that involve mobile manipulation are welcomed. Reviews, datasets tested in real applications, benchmarks, and surveys of the state-of-the-art methods are also welcomed.

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Topics of interest to this Special Issue include, but are not limited to, the following topics:

·Location of objectives for grasping.
·Road and trajectory planning to reach the handling areas.
·Sensing and planning in object manipulation.
·Piloting, orientation, and stabilization of the autonomous vehicle during handling.
·Grasping stability assessment using tactile perception, visual perception, or both.
·Control strategies for object manipulation.
·Manipulation of object in-hand with multi-fingered hands.
·Planning of tasks for grasping, transport, and placement of objects.

Important Dates:
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Deadline for manuscript submissions: October 31, 2020

Paper evaluation and submission:
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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on https://www.mdpi.com/journal/electronics/instructions. Electronics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline via the online submission system at https://login.mdpi.com/login. All papers will be peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this websit!
e. When submitting your manuscript please select:  Journal “Electronics", Section: “Computer Science and Engineering” and the Special Issue: “Advances in Robotic Mobile Manipulation”. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs).

Guest Editors:
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Prof. Dr. Pablo Gil
Computer Science Research Institute/Dept. of Physics, Systems Engineering and Signal Theory, University of Alicante, Spain.
Email: pablo.gil@ua.es

Prof. Dr. Francisco Candelas
Computer Science Research Institute/Dept. of Physics, Systems Engineering and Signal Theory, University of Alicante, Spain.
Email. francisco.candelas@ua.es
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Pablo Gil
Head of Computer Science Research Institute (IUII)
University de Alicante
Carretera Sant Vicent del Raspeig s/n
03690 Sant Vicent del Raspeig, Alicante (Spain)
Tel: +34 96 590 3400 ext 2014
e-mail: pablo.gil@ua.es
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