Guest Editorial for the TAES Special Section on Machine Learning Methods for Aerial and Space Positioning and Navigation

Positioning and navigation plays a significant role in a wide range of fields, such as aerospace, defense, and transportation, especially due to the continuous performance enhancement of the four Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) [1], [2] and the advent of complementary local positioning systems [3], [4]. Nowadays, requirements on positioning and navigation are becoming stricter in areas such as reliability, accuracy, continuity, complexity, integrability, and safety to enable better location-based services. In many complex and harsh environments, it is still a demanding task (such as for aerial and space vehicles) to generate real-time valid location information and perform the desired navigation, which enables to fulfill the assigned duties [5].