The main purpose of this special issue is to consolidate and to strengthen the relationships between the Multimodal data fusion research with Pattern recognition with a double objective: a) to improve scientific and technological results obtained by Multimodal data fusion research, which is expected to lead to a knowledge breakthrough in the areas of Pattern Recognition b) to allow dealing with the new research challenges which are raising both in Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision.

An important additional motivation for this special issue is to promote the incorporation of new methodological proposals that currently show great promise, such as “Machine Learning”, “Big Data” ”Deep Learning” or “Digital Image Processing”. We also intend to extend the traditional areas of application of Pattern Recognition to new and interesting research where theoreticians and practitioners from academic fields and industries worldwide are currently interested, such as: Neuroscience, Healthcare, Robotics, Agriculture, Smart Cities, etc. In these fields, new Multimodal Interaction technologies based on Machine Learning, Pattern Recognition and Computer Vision that formed the backbone of next generation technologies, are starring to play a central role for the development of new generation of truly user-friendly systems.