Large-scale autonomous fleets rely on teleoperation to resolve rare failures, yet streaming raw sensor data from many vehicles is costly, and remote operators can only monitor a limited number of vehicles at a time. We introduce FleetAgent, a cloud-hosted multimodal large language model (MLLM) assistant that consumes compact vectorized vehicle-to-network (V2N) messages, such as map elements, detected objects, and the ego planned path. It provides a structured natural-language response (including narration, explanation, and evaluation of the plan and scene), along with an intervention urgency score for operator prioritization. To make structured messages compatible with token-based MLLMs, we propose VecFormer, a vector-to-embedding interface with differentiable top-K context selection that bounds context length and GPU KV-cache growth, enabling more efficient batch processing, which is important under the context of cloud-hosted large-scale fleet management. We also construct VecEval, a nuScenes-derived dataset with paired human and synthetic imperfect plans and human-verified language labels, to facilitate the training and evaluation of our proposed system. Our proposed system can reduce uplink payload by up to 625 times compared with raw images and reduce KV-cache memory by 16.54 times compared with original text descriptions. On VecEval, FleetAgent improves Lingo-Judge score by 16.8% and reduces intervention failure rate by 19.9%, compared with Qwen2.5-VL-7B using language descriptions. These results demonstrate that FleetAgent can utilize compact structured V2N messaging to enable efficient, explainable teleoperation monitoring for autonomous fleets.
While Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) have demonstrated significant promise in Vision-Language Navigation (VLN), existing agents remain heavily constrained by systemic bottlenecks across inference, training, and data collection. Specifically, they suffer from prohibitive latency due to visual history reprocessing, action leakage during sequence-packed training, and suboptimal exploration in self-correction data collection. To overcome these intertwined challenges, we present Efficient-VLN, a highly efficient and robust baseline that systematically resolves these issues through three simple-yet-effective mechanisms. (1) Inference: We introduce KV-cache reuse with contiguous RoPE, enabling the model to process only the newly observed frame at each step for real-time inference. (2) Training: We propose packed training with an action-isolating mask to accelerate throughput while effectively bridging the training-inference gap by preventing action leakage. (3) Data Collection: We employ an Adaptive DAgger to dynamically balance autonomous exploration and oracle guidance, enhancing error-recovery capability without escalating computational costs. Extensive evaluations show that Efficient-VLN significantly advances the state-of-the-art across the R2R-CE (73.2% SR) and RxR-CE (75.6% SR) benchmarks. Meanwhile, it yields a 28% latency reduction compared to the previous state-of-the-art StreamVLN, establishing a new paradigm for streaming MLLM-based navigation.
Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) are strong perceivers of images and video. We ask how far that reach extends into acting: dropping an MLLM directly into a drone's control loop, with its entire action space declared solely in the prompt. Recent systems approach this setting but increasingly narrow the model's decision-making. We widen it back. We introduce DroneCATS-Agent, an architecture where the MLLM is a swappable component, and DroneCATS, a benchmark treating the model as the independent variable. Beyond merely flying toward a pixel, our agent entrusts the model to yaw and search, deliberate when unsure, and self-declare arrival---all without fine-tuning or function-calling schemas. Evaluating frontier and open models across four core capabilities---approaching a visible target, tracking a moving one, searching outside the initial view, and commanding a multi-drone fleet---reveals that even the simplest embodied settings are far from solved. Crucially, to identify what breaks first at the edge, our roster scales down to 2B parameters. The findings expose a stark paradox: it is not the flying that fails. Small open models often navigate into the success radius more reliably than frontier models, yet lose the episode by declaring arrival prematurely or not at all. Multi-drone commanding amplifies this divide, with small models failing by blindly copying a single coordinate across distinct views. Viewed as vision-language-action agents, the models' spatial perception holds up, but their action protocol does not. What separates a deployable edge model from a frontier model is not navigation, but the discipline to sustain a declared protocol and emit the correct terminating action. The open problem is closing this gap at onboard compute costs---yielding a fast model that plans persistently and knows exactly when it is done---and DroneCATS is built to measure that distance.
Bridging the gap between human pilot intent and autonomous flight operation is critical for real-world electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft deployment. Flight planning traditionally relies on classic algorithms that struggle to incorporate flexible human preferences. We present FRAMe, an End-to-End Large Language Model (LLM) Flight Planning tool with RAG-based Memory and Multi-modal Coach Agent. Our system integrates a planner LLM with a multi-modal coach agent and retrieval augmented generation (RAG)-based memory to generate flight plans that satisfy mission constraints while aligning with human flight operator preferences. We demonstrate the system in a range of real-world-inspired scenarios of varying difficulty levels. Across four LLMs, the full FRAMe system (RAG and coach) yields the highest validity for every planner (up to 93.8% aggregate, 99% on Easy scenarios for the strongest planner) and shifts preference-relevant metrics in the operator-favored direction where the metric has headroom. FRAMe signifies how advanced LLMs can be deployed for human-centric mission planning, translating natural language instructions into safe, efficient, and flexible flight routes. The code is available at: github.com/amin-tabrizian/FlightPlanningLLMs