From Intelligent Control to Integrated Autonomy: Reflections on Advanced Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Control Systems

Abstract

Robotics is advancing toward embodied intelligence and high-level autonomy, requiring the seamless integration of sensing, computation, communication, control, and human interaction to be designed as a coherent system. This Editorial synthesizes ten contributions to this Special Issue, entitled “Advanced Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Control Systems—Celebrating the 75th Birthday of Professor Imre J. Rudas”, and relates their findings to computational intelligence and autonomous systems. Spanning robot navigation, human–robot safety, laboratory automation, digital pathology, manufacturing, medical robotics, and archeology, the collection highlights the complementary roles of hybrid reasoning, uncertainty management, network-aware control, digital twins, and reproducible sensor validation. Emerging research priorities include integrating learning methods with physical models and explicit constraints, coordinating distributed computation and control, and extending verification from individual components to system behavior. Multimodal AI offers further opportunities for task interpretation and adaptation, while reinforcing the need for auditable execution and deterministic safety mechanisms. The central perspective is that reliable autonomy depends on system integration and verifiable behavior alongside algorithmic performance.