Aerial Robotics

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Overview

Aerial robotics develops flying machines—from multirotors and fixed-wing aircraft to flapping-wing and hybrid robots—and the methods that let them sense, move, and interact with the world. Work combines onboard perception and state estimation with model-based planning and control, including model predictive control, visual servoing, and robust control; reinforcement learning and vision-language-action models are increasingly used for navigation, tracking, and manipulation. Researchers also study cooperative swarms, aerial transport, landing, and contact tasks, evaluating systems in simulation and benchmarks as well as on real robots with limited power, computing, and sensing. A central challenge is making learning-based autonomy generalize from simulation to changing real conditions while preserving safety, reliability, and real-time performance.

Latest papers

CardsList

343 papers38 papers in the last four weeks, down 24% on the four weeks before. 0.2% of all new papers.

  1. Fine-Tuning Large Language Models for Cooperative Tactical Deconfliction of Small Unmanned Aerial Systems

    Mar 30, 2026Iman Sharifi, Alex Zongo, Peng WeiLanguage Model-Based ControlMulti-Agent Coordination

    George Washington University

  2. CARLA-Air: Fly Drones Inside a CARLA World -- A Unified Infrastructure for Air-Ground Embodied Intelligence

    Mar 30, 2026Tianle Zeng, Yanci Wen, Hong ZhangRobotics SimulationAutonomous Driving Simulation

    1Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Robotics and Computer Vision, Southern University of Science and Technology.

  3. Real-Time Branch-to-Tool Distance Estimation for Autonomous UAV Pruning: Benchmarking Five DEFOM-Stereo Variants from Simulation to Jetson Deployment

    Mar 27, 2026Yida Lin, Bing Xue, Mengjie Zhang +2Metric Depth EstimationStereo Matching

    Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand · Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, University of Canterbury, Canterbury, New Zealand

  4. Integrated Multi-Drone Task Allocation, Sequencing, and Optimal Trajectory Generation in Obstacle-Rich 3D Environments

    Mar 26, 2026Yunes Alqudsi, Murat MakaraciMulti-Robot Motion PlanningAerial Robotics

    Aerospace Engineering Department, Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkiye · Interdisciplinary Research Center for Aviation and Space Exploration, KFUPM, Dhahran, Saudi Arabia · Mechanical Engineering Department, Faculty of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli, Turkiye

  5. Saranga: MilliWatt Ultrasound for Navigation in Visually Degraded Environments on Palm-Sized Aerial Robots

    Mar 25, 2026Manoj Velmurugan, Phillip Brush, Colin Balfour +2Robot NavigationRobotic Ultrasound

    Perception and Autonomous Robotics (PeAR) Group, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA 01609, USA. · TDK InvenSense, Berkeley, CA 94710, USA.

  6. Enhancing Drone Light Shows Performances: Optimal Allocation and Trajectories for Swarm Drone Formations

    Mar 25, 2026Yunes AlqudsiTrajectory GenerationMulti-Robot Motion Planning

  7. Decentralized End-to-End Multi-AAV Pursuit Using Predictive Spatio-Temporal Observation via Deep Reinforcement Learning

    Mar 25, 2026Yude Li, Zhexuan Zhou, Huizhe Li +6Multi-Agent SystemsMulti-Robot Coordination

    The authors are with the School of Intelligence Science and Engineering, the Guangdong Key Laboratory of Intelligent Morphing Mechanisms and Adaptive Robotics, and the Shenzhen Key Lab for Advanced Motion Control and Modern Automation Equipments, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong 518055, China

  8. Strain-Parameterized Coupled Dynamics and Dual-Camera Visual Servoing for Aerial Continuum Manipulators

    Mar 24, 2026Niloufar Amiri, Farrokh Janabi-SharifiAerial ManipulationAerial Robotics

    Department of Mechanical, Industrial, and Mechatronics Engineering, Toronto Metropolitan University, ON, Canada.

  9. AeroScene: Progressive Scene Synthesis for Aerial Robotics

    Mar 24, 2026Nghia Vu, Tuong Do, Dzung Tran +63D Scene GenerationSynthetic Data Generation for Robotics

    AIOZ Ltd., Singapore · University of Liverpool, UK · National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan +2

  10. LARD 2.0: Enhanced Datasets and Benchmarking for Autonomous Landing Systems

    Mar 23, 2026Yassine Bougacha, Geoffrey Delhomme, Mélanie Ducoffe +8Aerial RoboticsUAV Navigation

    DGA · IRT Saint Exupéry, Toulouse, France · Thales, Toulouse, France +3

  11. SafeLand: Safe Autonomous Landing in Unknown Environments with Bayesian Semantic Mapping

    Mar 18, 2026Markus Gross, Andreas Greiner, Sai Bharadhwaj Matha +3Aerial RoboticsSafe Robot Navigation

    Fraunhofer Institute IVI · TU Munich · Munich Center for Machine Learning

  12. AeroGrab: A Unified Framework for Aerial Grasping in Cluttered Environments

    Mar 16, 2026Shivansh Pratap Singh, Naveen Sudheer Nair, Samaksh Ujjawal +4Aerial RoboticsRobotic Grasping

    Robotics Research Center, IIIT Hyderabad, India. · Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, UK.

  13. Seeing Where to Deploy: Metric RGB-Based Traversability Analysis for Aerial-to-Ground Hidden Space Inspection

    Mar 15, 2026Seoyoung Lee, Shaekh Mohammad Shithil, Durgakant Pushp +2RoboticsRobotic Inspection

    The University of Texas at Austin, USA. · Indiana University, Bloomington, USA.

  14. AeroGen: Structured Prompting for Low-Code Drone-as-a-Service Mission Composition

    Mar 15, 2026Kautuk Astu, Yogesh SimmhanLLM-Based Program SynthesisLLM Code Generation

    Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore 560012 India

  15. Motion-Specific Battery Health Assessment for Quadrotors Using High-Fidelity Battery Models

    Mar 13, 2026Joonhee Kim, Sanghyun Park, Donghyeong Kim +2Lithium-Ion BatteriesRUL Estimation

    Department of Convergence IT Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Choengam-ro 77, Nam-gu, Pohang-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Republic of Korea. · Department of Electrical Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology, Choeng-am-ro 77, Nam-gu, Pohang-si, Gyeongsangbuk-do, Republic of Korea.

  16. UE5-Forest: A Photorealistic Synthetic Stereo Dataset for UAV Forestry Depth Estimation

    Mar 13, 2026Yida Lin, Bing Xue, Mengjie Zhang +2Depth EstimationSynthetic Data Generation for Robotics

    Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand · Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, University of Canterbury, Canterbury, New Zealand

  17. Flight through Narrow Gaps with Morphing-Wing Drones

    Mar 12, 2026Julius Wanner, Hoang-Vu Phan, Charbel Toumieh +1Aerial RoboticsTrajectory Optimization

    Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland · Avian-Insect Robotics in Motion Laboratory, University of Nevada, Reno, USA

  18. Learn Structure, Adapt on the Fly: Multi-Scale Residual Learning and Online Adaptation for Aerial Manipulators

    Mar 12, 2026Samaksh Ujjawal, Naveen Sudheer Nair, Shivansh Pratap Singh +3Aerial RoboticsTest-Time Adaptation

    1Robotics Research Center, IIIT Hyderabad, India. · Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, UK. · 3Newcastle University, UK.

  19. Robust Co-design Optimisation for Agile Fixed-Wing UAVs

    Mar 11, 2026Adrian Andrei Buda, Xavier Chen, Nicolò Botteghi +1Robot Morphology-Control Co-DesignAerial Robotics

    Department of Aeronautics, Imperial College London, United Kingdom · Department of Mathematics, Politecnico di Milano, Italy

  20. UAV-MARL: Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Time-Critical and Dynamic Medical Supply Delivery

    Mar 11, 2026Islam Guven, Mehmet ParlakMulti-Agent CoordinationMulti-Agent Reinforcement Learning

    ICTEAM, Université catholique de Louvain Ottignies-Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium

  21. Lightweight 3D LiDAR-Based UAV Tracking: An Adaptive Extended Kalman Filtering Approach

    Mar 10, 2026Nivand Khosravi, Meysam Basiri, Rodrigo VenturaRelative Pose EstimationAerial Robotics

    Institute for Systems and Robotics (ISR), Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon, Portugal

  22. ImpedanceDiffusion: Diffusion-Based Global Path Planning for UAV Swarm Navigation with Generative Impedance Control

    Mar 10, 2026Faryal Batool, Yasheerah Yaqoot, Muhammad Ahsan Mustafa +3Aerial RoboticsSwarm Robotics

    Intelligent Space Robotics Laboratory, Center for Digital Engineering, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, Moscow, Russia.

  23. Real-Time Monocular Scene Analysis for UAV in Outdoor Environments

    Mar 9, 2026Yara AlaaEldinMonocular Depth EstimationSynthetic-to-Real Domain Adaptation

    University of Genova; DRIM; Ph.D. Program of National Interest in Robotics and Intelligent Machines; Administrative Headquarters: Università di Genova

  24. Trajectory Tracking Control Design for Autonomous Helicopters with Guaranteed Error Bounds

    Mar 9, 2026Philipp Schitz, Johann C. Dauer, Paolo MercorelliRobot Trajectory TrackingAerial Robotics

    Institute of Flight Systems, German Aerospace Center (DLR), 38108 Braunschweig, Germany · Institute for Production Technology and Systems, Leuphana University of Lueneburg, 21335 Lueneburg, Germany

  25. Drag-Aware Aerodynamic Manipulability for Torque-Limited Redundant Multirotors: Aerodynamic Promptness based on the Symmetric Acceleration Capacity

    Mar 9, 2026Antonio FranchiAerial RoboticsQuadrotor Control

    Robotics and Mechatronics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands · Department of Computer, Control and Management Engineering, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome, Italy

  26. AeroPlace-Flow: Language-Grounded Object Placement for Aerial Manipulators via Visual Foresight and Object Flow

    Mar 8, 2026Sarthak Mishra, Rishabh Dev Yadav, Naveen Nair +2Aerial RoboticsLanguage-Conditioned Robot Manipulation

    Robotics Research Center, IIIT Hyderabad, India. · Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, UK. · Newcastle University, UK

  27. Vision-Guided MPPI for Agile Drone Racing: Navigating Arbitrary Gate Poses via Neural Signed Distance Fields

    Mar 7, 2026Fangguo Zhao, Hanbing Zhang, Zhouheng Li +2Autonomous Drone RacingAerial Robotics

    College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China

  28. Energy-Efficient Collaborative Transport of Tether-Suspended Payloads via Rotating Equilibrium

    Mar 7, 2026Eric Foss, Andrew Tai, Carlo Bosio +1Aerial RoboticsMulti-Robot Coordination

    High Performance Robotics Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California Berkeley, CA 94720, United States.

  29. Receding-Horizon Nullspace Optimization for Actuation-Aware Control Allocation in Omnidirectional UAVs

    Mar 6, 2026Riccardo Pretto, Mahmoud Hamandi, Abdullah Mohamed Ali +3Aerial RoboticsOptimal Control

    Tampere University, Finland · New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, UAE

  30. Neural-Surrogate Co-Design of Aerodynamic Shape and Control

    Mar 6, 2026Daniele Affinita, Mingda Xu, Benoît Valentin Gherardi +1Robot Morphology-Control Co-DesignAerial Robotics

    École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland