Recently, there has been an exponentially growing interest in synergies of communications and navigation/localization techniques that can benefit from each other. The key objectives aim at the following fundamentals (of wireless communication and navigation/localization systems) by raising the following questions:

• How can navigation systems benefit from existing communications systems?
• How can communication systems benefit from geolocation information of mobile terminals?

Topics of interest will include, but are not limited to:

• Hybrid positioning using both wireless communications and global satellite navigation systems
• Resource management with positioning information
• Location-aware PHY/MAC algorithms/procedures
• Indoor positioning combined with short-range communications
• Signal processing techniques for (seamless) indoor/outdoor localization
• Cognitive and context aware mobile radio system
• Cooperative positioning
• Fingerprinting and positioning algorithms

This special issue of the International Journal of Navigation and Observation focuses on all the research themes related to the timing aspects of joint communications and navigation, and starts from the SyCoLo 2009 (June 2009).

All researchers are encouraged to submit their most recent findings and contributions for consideration.