Focus and Scope

The International Journal of Robotics and Control Systems (IJRCS) aims to be at the forefront of extensive and authentic research publications in robotics and control systems engineering, both theoretical and practice-oriented research. Published articles are original papers containing either an application, a modification, or an improvement of at least one control technique/method/algorithm/instrumentation to design/build/develop/operate autonomous robots or electrical engineering systems.

The topic of the published articles must belong to at least one of the following scopes:

Robotics. Since robotics integrates various fields in engineering, topics in this scope are also widely varied. Several trending topics in this category are autonomous robots, intelligent systems, robotic sensing (touch, vision), robot manipulation, robot navigation (trajectory mapping, formation, coordination), robot communication, and robot motion (dynamics, kinematics, motion improvement). Furthermore, due to the broad implementation of robotics in human life, papers with topics related to bio-inspired robots and medical robots also belong to this scope.

Control systems engineering. Generally, control system engineering aims to solve three major issues: understanding physical systems using empirical modeling in terms of their inputs, outputs and various components with different behaviors; utilizing control system design tools to design controllers for those systems; and implementing controllers in physical systems employing available technology. Thus, topics that belong to this scope are diverse. Several topics related to the first issue in control system engineering include system modeling, system identification, and control instrumentation (sensors, observers, estimation, filtering control). Meanwhile, other trending topics related to the second and third issues include automation control, linear control (state-feedback), nonlinear control (PID, feedback linearization, Sliding Mode Control), stabilization control, chaotic control system, a power control (grid control, distributed control), and system optimization (adaptive control, intelligent control).

Section Policies

Peer Review Process

Figure 1. Peer review process

Publication Frequency

IJRCS is a rapid journal that will publish four-issue a year in the period of January-March, April-June, July-September, and October-December.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Publications Ethics

International Journal of Robotics and Control Systems, called IJRCS, is committed to upholding the highest standards of publication ethics and takes all possible measures against any publication malpractices. The Editorial Board is responsible for, among others, preventing publication malpractice. Unethical behavior is unacceptable, and the IJRCS does not tolerate plagiarism in any form. Authors who submitted articles: affirm that manuscript contents are original. Furthermore, the authors’ submission also implies that the manuscript has not been published previously in any language, either wholly or partly, and is not currently submitted for publication elsewhere. Editors, authors, and reviewers within the International Journal of Robotics and Control Systems are to be fully committed to good publication practice and accept the responsibility for fulfilling the following duties and responsibilities as set by the COPE Code of Conduct for Journal Editors. As part of the Core Practices, COPE has written guidelines on http://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines.

Section A: Publication and Authorship 

1. All submitted papers are subject to a strict peer-review process by reviewers that are experts in the area of the particular manuscript.
2. The review process is a double-blind peer review.
3. The factors considered in the review are relevance, soundness, significance, originality, readability, and language.
4. The possible decisions include acceptance, acceptance with revisions, or rejection.
5. If authors are encouraged to revise and resubmit a submission, there is no guarantee that the revised submission will be accepted.
6. Rejected articles will not be re-reviewed.
7. The paper acceptance is constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism.
8. No research can be included in more than one publication. 

Section B: Authors’ responsibilities

1. Authors must certify that their manuscripts are their original work.
2. Authors must certify that the manuscript has not previously been published elsewhere.
3. Authors must certify that the manuscript is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere. 
4. The authors must participate in the peer-review process. 
5. Authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes.
6. All Authors mentioned in the paper must have significantly contributed to the research.
7. The authors must state that all data in the paper are real and authentic.
8. The authors must notify the Editors of any conflicts of interest.
9. The authors must identify all sources used in the creation of their manuscript.
10. Authors must report any errors they discover in their published paper to the Editors. 

Section C: Reviewers’ responsibilities

1. Reviewers should keep all information regarding papers confidential and treat them as privileged information. 
2. Reviews should be conducted objectively, with no personal criticism of the author.
3. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
4. Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors.
5. Reviewers should also call to the Editor in Chief’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
6. Reviewers should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers. 

Section D: Editors’ responsibilities

1. Editors have complete responsibility and authority to reject/accept an article.
2. Editors are responsible for the contents and overall quality of the publication.
3. Editors should always consider the needs of the authors and the readers when attempting to improve the publication.
4. Editors should guarantee the quality of the papers and the integrity of the academic record.
5. Editors should publish errata pages or make corrections when needed.
6. Editors should have a clear picture of research funding sources.
7. Editors should base their decisions solely on the paper’s importance, originality, clarity, and relevance to the publication’s scope.
8. Editors should not reverse their decisions nor overturn the ones of previous editors without serious reason. 
9. Editors should preserve the anonymity of reviewers. 
10. Editors should ensure that all published research material conforms to internationally accepted ethical guidelines.
11. Editors should only accept a paper when reasonably certain.
12. Editors should act if they suspect misconduct, whether a paper is published or unpublished, and make all reasonable attempts to persist in obtaining a resolution to the problem.
13. Editors should accept papers based on suspicions; they should have proof of misconduct.
14. Editors should not allow any conflicts of interest between staff, authors, reviewers, and board members.

Plagiarism Policy

Withdrawal of Manuscripts

The author is not allowed to withdraw the submitted manuscripts because the withdrawal wastes valuable resources from editors and reviewers who spent a great deal of time processing the submitted manuscripts and works invested by the Publisher. However, the authors could suggest the withdrawal if there is no updated progress review information after six months from our side.

Retraction

The papers published in the International Journal of Robotics and Control Systems will be considered to retract in the publication if:

1. They have clear evidence that the findings are unreliable, either as a result of misconduct (e.g., data fabrication) or honest error (e.g., miscalculation or experimental error)
2. the findings have previously been published elsewhere without proper crossreferencing, permission, or justification (i.e., cases of redundant publication)
3. it constitutes plagiarism
4. it reports unethical research

The mechanism of retraction follows the Retraction Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which can be accessed at https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines.

Conflict of Interest

All authors must disclose all relationships or interests that could inappropriately influence or bias their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include but are not limited to financial interests (such as membership, employment, consultancies, stocks/shares ownership, honoraria, grants or other funding, paid expert testimonies, and patent-licensing arrangements) and non-financial interests (such as personal or professional relationships, affiliations, personal beliefs).

See below for examples of disclosures:

Conflicts of Interest: Author A has received research grants from Company A. Author B has received a speaker honorarium from Company X and owns stocks in Company Y. Author C has been involved as a consultant and expert witness in Company Z. Author D is the inventor of patent X.

If no conflicts exist, the authors should state:

Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

Ethical Guidance

Ethical Oversight

According to the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), ethical oversight should include but is not limited to, policies on consent to publication, publication on vulnerable populations, ethical conduct of research using animals, ethical conduct of research using human subjects, handling confidential data and ethical business/marketing practices. The International Journal of Robotics and Control Systems is committed to considering appeals concerning our authors' non-observance of ethical principles.

Research Involving Human Subjects

When reporting studies that involve human participants, authors should include a statement that the studies have been approved by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee and have been performed in accordance with the ethical standards as laid down in the 1975 Declaration of Helsinki (https://www.wma.net/what-we-do/medical-ethics/declaration-of-helsinki/), revised in 2013, and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

If doubt exists whether the research was conducted in accordance with the 1975 Helsinki Declaration or comparable standards, the authors must explain the reasons for their approach and demonstrate that the independent ethics committee or institutional review board explicitly approved the doubtful aspects of the study. At a minimum, a statement including the project identification code, date of approval, and name of the ethics committee or institutional review board should be stated in Section ‘Ethical Approval’ of the article.

An example of an ethical statement: "All subjects gave their informed consent for inclusion before participating in the study. The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki, and the protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of XXX (Project identification code)."

Use of Animals in Research

The welfare of animals used for research must be respected. When reporting experiments on animals, authors should indicate whether the international, national, and/or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals have been followed and that the studies have been approved by a research ethics committee at the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted (where such a committee exists).

The International Journal of Robotics and Control Systems endorses the ARRIVE guidelines (https://arriveguidelines.org/arrive-guidelines) for reporting experiments using live animals. Authors and reviewers can use the ARRIVE guidelines as a checklist, which can be found at: https://arriveguidelines.org/resources/author-checklists.

Research Involving Cell Lines

Methods sections for submissions reporting on research with cell lines should state the origin of any cell lines. For established cell lines, the provenance should be stated, and references must also be given to either a published paper or a commercial source. If previously unpublished de novo cell lines were used, including those gifted from another laboratory, details of institutional review board or ethics committee approval must be given, and confirmation of written informed consent must be provided if the line is of human origin.

Example of an ethical statement: "The HCT116 cell line was obtained from XXX. The MLH1+ cell line was provided by XXX, Ltd. The DLD-1 cell line was obtained from Dr. XXX. The DR-GFP and SA-GFP reporter plasmids were obtained from Dr. XXX, and the Rad51K133A expression vector was obtained from Dr. XXX."

Research Involving Plants

Experimental research on plants (either cultivated or wild), including a collection of plant material, must comply with institutional, national, or international guidelines. We recommend that authors comply with the CBD (https://www.cbd.int/convention/) and the CITES (https://cites.org/eng).

For each submitted manuscript supporting genetic information and origin must be provided. For research manuscripts involving rare and non-model plants (other than, e.g., Arabidopsis thaliana, Nicotiana benthamiana, Oriza sativa, or many other typical model plants), voucher specimens must be deposited in an accessible herbarium or museum. Vouchers may be requested for review by future investigators to verify the identity of the material used in the study (especially if taxonomic rearrangements occur in the future). They should include details of the populations sampled on the site of collection (GPS coordinates), date of collection, and document the part(s) used in the study where appropriate. For rare, threatened, or endangered species, this can be waived, but it is necessary for the author to describe this in the cover letter.

Example of an ethical statement: "Torenia fournieri plants were used in this study. White-flowered Crown White (CrW) and violet-flowered Crown Violet (CrV) cultivars selected from ‘Crown Mix’ (XXX Company, City, Country) were kindly provided by Dr. XXX (XXX Institute, City, Country)."

Advertising Policy

At present, we do not publish any advertisements in International Journal of Robotics and Control Systems.

Allegations of Misconduct

Plagiarism

Plagiarism includes, but is not limited to:

• Directly copying text from other sources without attribution
• Copying ideas, images, or data from other sources without attribution
• Reusing text from your own previous publications without attribution or agreement of the editor
• Exception: Reusing text from the Methods section in the author’s previous publications, with attribution to the source, is acceptable.
• Using an idea from another source with slightly modified language without attribution.

If plagiarism is detected during the peer review process, the manuscript may be rejected. If plagiarism is detected after publication, we may issue a correction or retract the paper as appropriate.

Data fabrication 

This concerns the making up of research findings.

• Suspected fabricated data in a submitted manuscript
• Suspected fabricated data in a published manuscript

Data falsification 

Manipulating research data with the intention of giving a false impression. This includes manipulating images (e.g., micrographs, gels, radiological images), removing outliers or “inconvenient” results, changing, adding or omitting data points, etc.

Duplicate submissions

Duplicate submission is a situation whereby an author submits the same or similar manuscripts to two different journals at the same time, either within Academic Journals or any other publisher. This includes the submission of manuscripts derived from the same data in such a manner that there are no substantial differences in the manuscripts. Duplicate submission also includes the submission of the same/similar manuscript in different languages to different journals.

Authorship Issues

Clear policies (that allow for transparency around who contributed to the work and in what capacity) should be in place for requirements for authorship and contributorship, as well as processes for managing potential disputes.

Citation Manipulation

Citation Manipulation includes excessive citations in the submitted manuscript that do not contribute to the scholarly content of the article and have been included solely for the purpose of increasing citations to a given author’s work or to articles published in a particular journal. This leads to misrepresenting the importance of the specific work and journal in which it appears and is thus a form of scientific misconduct.

Suspected Manipulation of Peer Review/Bias of Peer Reviews

International Journal of Robotics and Control Systems selects the reviewers on any manuscript with due care so as to avoid any conflict of interest between the reviewers and the authors. Our policy is compliant with COPE Guidelines on peer review.

Errata and Corrigenda

Changes/additions to accepted articles

All content of published articles is subject to the editorial review process, organized by and under the auspices of the editor. Should the authors wish to add to their article after acceptance, they must submit a request to the editor, and the new content will be reviewed.

• If the new material is added to the accepted article, it must be submitted for peer review as a new manuscript, referring back to the original;
• If the new material should replace the original content of the accepted article, the editor may consider the publication of an erratum or a corrigendum.

An erratum is a correction of errors introduced to the article by the publisher.

All publisher-introduced changes are highlighted to the author at the proof stage, and any errors are ideally identified by the author and corrected by the publisher before final publication.

A corrigendum refers to a change to the article that the author wishes to publish at any time after acceptance. Authors should contact the journal editor, who will determine the impact of the change and decide on the appropriate course of action.

International Journal of Robotics and Control Systems
e-ISSN: 2775-2658
Website: https://pubs2.ascee.org/index.php/IJRCS
Email: ijrcs@ascee.org
Organized by: Association for Scientific Computing Electronics and Engineering (ASCEE), Peneliti Teknologi Teknik Indonesia, Department of Electrical Engineering, Universitas Ahmad Dahlan and Kuliah Teknik Elektro
Published by: Association for Scientific Computing Electronics and Engineering (ASCEE)
Office: Jalan Janti, Karangjambe 130B, Banguntapan, Bantul, Daerah Istimewa Yogyakarta, Indonesia