Dear readers of the Journal of Terramechanics and ISTVS members:
As many of you might know, the Journal of Terramechanics has been extending its reach to new frontiers of off-road mobility by in integrating of principles of terramechanics with artificial intelligence (AI) techniques and advanced controls to advance terrain mobility, energy efficiency and performance of off-road vehicles. We do this by organizing new sessions at the ISTVS conferences, publishing Special Issues of the Journal, announcing our activities in the ISTVS Newswire, and now — by inviting a new Editor of the Journal of Terramechanics.
In my capacity of the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Terramechanics, I am delighted to introduce Dr. Ramon Gonzalez as a new Editor. Dr. Gonzalez will be helping the Editorial Team to extend classical terramechanics and off-road vehicle mobility to the area of real-time applications, including terrain sensoring, computer-based vision and other techniques for terrain identification and estimation, advanced controls, AI, and geostatistics.
Future innovations terrain vehicle mobility strongly depend on applying terramechanics principles which were laid by the founders of terramechanics and have advanced in profound research work over the past decades, to vehicle engineering and, in particular, to vehicle sub-system design. As the transdisciplinary approach has become a feature in many areas of today’s science and technology, there is a need for integrating terramechanics knowledge with techniques that AI, control theory, and computer science can offer. By converging the listed technical areas, novel sub-systems can emerge to advance mobility of unmanned and conventional vehicle applications.
As a young researcher, Dr. Gonzalez has a strong record of a successful integration of AI with some key areas of terramechanics in his work. The Editorial Team looks forward to collaborating with Dr. Gonzalez on advancing the Journal of Terramechanics toward new frontiers in off-road mobility.
Vladimir Vantsevich, ScD, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Terramechanics
Dr. Ramon Gonzalez