Guest editorial embedded and networked systems for intelligent vehicles and robots

Embedded and networked systems for intelligent vehiclesand robots are expected to have a significant economic,societal and technological impact on industrial and automotiveapplications. Among the aspects that will benefit from thesetechnologies the first one is safety, thanks to the reduction ofaccidents caused by human errors. Another positive effect isexpected on sustainability, thanks to the increase in transportsystems efficiency. Comfort and inclusiveness will be alsoimproved, ensuring users’ freedom for other activities and“mobility for all”.Logistics and factory automation are among the main areasthat will take advantages from intelligent vehicles and robots,that are expected to play a key role in Industry 4.0 scenarios,the so-called fourth industrial revolution, where intelligentvehicles and industrial robots will move and operate au-tonomously and cooperatively. Such a revolution has many keyenabling technologies, such as, networked sensors, actuatorsand embedded computing and control platforms, that will bedistributed on-board the vehicle/robot. The contribution ofartificial intelligence and deep learning computing platforms isalso emerging to achieve full intelligent autonomous mobilityof vehicles and robots.Among the challenges that intelligent vehicles and robotshave to face, functional safety and cybersecurity are for surekey aspects that need to be fully addressed to ensure thewidespread adoption of autonomous vehicles in the market.The Special Section on “Embedded and Networked Systemsfor Intelligent Vehicles and Robots” of the IEEE Transactionson Industrial Informatics (TII) tackles the research challengesfor the successful adoption of intelligent vehicles and robotsin many areas, including autonomous vehicles and Industry4.0.