An unmanned system is a machine or device that is equipped with necessary data processors, sensors, automatic control, and communications systems, and is capable of performing missions autonomously without human intervention. Unmanned systems include unmanned aircraft, ground robots, underwater explorers, satellites, and other unconventional structures. 

The journal Unmanned Systems aims to cover all subjects related to the development of automatic machine systems, which include advanced technologies in unmanned hardware platforms (aerial, ground, underwater and unconventional platforms), unmanned software systems, energy systems, modeling and control, communications systems, computer vision systems, sensing and information processing, navigation and path planning, computing, information fusion, multi-agent systems, mission management, machine intelligence, artificial intelligence, and innovative application case studies.