UAV Trajectory Optimization

UAV: Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

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Overview

UAV trajectory optimization chooses where and how an unmanned aerial vehicle flies while accounting for vehicle dynamics, obstacles, and mission goals such as coverage, low energy use, or reliable communication. Common approaches include optimal control and nonlinear model predictive control, differential-flatness and polynomial planning, graph and sampling-based search, and reinforcement learning for complex or multi-UAV settings. Many methods combine planning with sensing, battery, wind, or communication models, and use real-time replanning to respond to changing conditions. A central challenge is producing plans that are both computationally fast and reliably executable despite uncertain perception, disturbances, and differences between models and real flight.

Latest papers

CardsList

48 papers5 papers in the last four weeks, down 37% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. CosFly-Track: A Large-Scale Multi-Modal Dataset for UAV Visual Tracking via Multi-Constraint Trajectory Optimization

    May 18, 2026Xiangyue Wang, Hanxuan Chen, Songsheng Cheng +7Aerial RoboticsTrajectory Optimization

    Autel Robotics · Nanjing University · Peking University +2

  2. Wind-Aware Optimal Trajectory Planning for Efficient Gliding of Fixed-Wing Aerial Systems

    May 15, 2026Luca Morando, Nishanth Bobbili, Giuseppe LoiannoAerial RoboticsTrajectory Optimization

    New York University, NY 10012, USA · University of California Berkeley, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA

  3. Ergodic Trajectory Design by Learned Pushforward Maps: Provable Coverage via Conditional Flow Matching

    May 13, 2026Ehsan Aghazadeh, Masoud Malekzadeh, Ahmad Ghasemi +1Trajectory OptimizationTrajectory Generation

    University of Massachusetts Amherst

  4. Joint Optimization of Trajectory Control, Resource Allocation, and Task Offloading for Multi-UAV-Assisted IoV

    May 6, 2026Maoxin Ji, Qiong Wu, Pingyi Fan +4Trajectory OptimizationIntelligent Transportation Systems

    School of Internet of Things Engineering, Jiangnan University, Wuxi 214122, China · School of Information Engineering, Jiangxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced Signal Processing and Intelligent Communications, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China · Department of Electronic Engineering, State Key laboratory of Space Network and Communications, Beijing National Research Center for Information Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China +4

  5. Flying by Inference: Active Inference World Models for Adaptive UAV Swarms

    Apr 30, 2026Kaleem Arshid, Ali Krayani, Lucio Marcenaro +2Multi-Robot Motion PlanningWorld Models for Robotics

    Department of Engineering and Naval Architecture (DITEN), University of Genoa, 16145 Genoa, Italy · Intelligent Systems Laboratory, Department of Systems Engineering and Automation, Carlos III University of Madrid, 28911 Legan´es, Spain

  6. Semantic-Aware UAV Command and Control for Efficient IoT Data Collection

    Apr 9, 2026Assane Sankara, Daniel Bonilla Licea, Hajar El HammoutiUAV Trajectory OptimizationInternet of Things

    College of Computing, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P), Ben Guerir, Morocco

  7. Joint Task Offloading, Inference Optimization and UAV Trajectory Planning for Generative AI Empowered Intelligent Transportation Digital Twin

    Apr 9, 2026Xiaohuan Li, Junchuan Fan, Bingqi Zhang +3Intelligent Transportation SystemsDigital Twins

    Guangxi University Key Laboratory of Intelligent Networking and Scenario System (School of Information and Communication, Guilin University of Electronic Technology), Guilin 541004, China · Research Institute of Highway Ministry of Transport, Beijing 100000, China · School of Automation, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China +1

  8. Communications-Aware NMPC for Multi-Rotor Aerial Relay Networks Under Jamming Interference

    Mar 30, 2026Giuseppe Silano, Daniel Bonilla Licea, Davide Liuzza +2UAV Trajectory OptimizationWireless Communications

    Department of Power Generation Technologies and Materials, Ricerca sul Sistema Energetico S.p.A., 20134 Milan, Italy. · Department of Cybernetics, Czech Technical University in Prague, 12135 Prague, Czech Republic. · College of Computing, Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, 11103, Morocco. +2

  9. Spatio-Temporal Attention Enhanced Multi-Agent DRL for UAV-Assisted Wireless Networks with Limited Communications

    Mar 23, 2026Che Chen, Lanhua Li, Shimin Gong +3Spatio-Temporal AttentionMulti-Agent Reinforcement Learning

    School of Intelligent Systems Engineering, Shenzhen Campus of Sun Yat-sen University, Shenzhen 518000, China, and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhuhai 519082, China · Department of Equipment Management and Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Engineering, Air Force Engineering University, Xi’an · School of Computing and Artificial Intelligence, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, Nanchang 330032, China +1

  10. Evolutionary Biparty Multiobjective UAV Path Planning: Problems and Empirical Comparisons

    Mar 23, 2026Kesheng Chen, Wenjian Luo, Xin Lin +2UAV Trajectory OptimizationMulti-Objective Motion Planning

    Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Novel Security Intelligence Technologies, School of Computer Science and Technology, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen 518055, China · Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen 518055, China · School of Artificial Intelligence/School of Future Technology, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China

  11. Learn for Variation: Efficient AAV Trajectory Learning through a Differentiable Wireless World Model

    Mar 19, 2026Xiucheng Wang, Zhenye Chen, Nan Cheng +2UAV Trajectory OptimizationModel-Based RL

    State Key Laboratory of ISN and School of Telecommunications Engineering, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China · School of Aerospace Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an 710071, China · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, N2L 3G1, Canada

  12. Perception-Aware Autonomous Exploration in Feature-Limited Environments

    Mar 16, 2026Moji Shi, Rajitha de Silva, Hang Yu +2UAV NavigationUAV Trajectory Optimization

    MAVLab, TU Delft, Netherlands · Lincoln Center for Autonomous Systems (L-CAS), School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Lincoln, UK

  13. JCAS-MARL: Joint Communication and Sensing UAV Networks via Resource-Constrained Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning

    Mar 13, 2026Islam Guven, Mehmet ParlakIntegrated Sensing and CommunicationWireless Resource Allocation

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

  14. 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

  15. 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

  16. Perception-Aware Time-Optimal Planning for Quadrotor Waypoint Flight

    Mar 4, 2026Chao Qin, Jiaxu Xing, Rudolf Reiter +4UAV Trajectory OptimizationMotion Planning

    Authors are with the University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies (UTIAS), Canada

  17. Temporal Cascading of Planning and Control for Quadrotor MPC

    Dec 13, 2025Rudolf Reiter, Chao Qin, Leonard Bauersfeld +1Robot Trajectory TrackingAerial Robotics

    Robotics and Perception Group, Department of Informatics, University of Zurich, Andreasstrasse 15, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland · Institute for Aerospace Studies, University of Toronto, 4925 Dufferin Street, Toronto, ON M3H 5T6, Canada

  18. LLM-Aided Joint Secrecy Precoding and Trajectory for RSMA-Based Heterogeneous UAV Networks

    Jul 23, 2025Lijie Zheng, Ji He, Shih Yu Chang +1Trajectory OptimizationWireless Communications

    School of Computer Science and Technology, Xidian University, Xi’an, 710071 China · Department of Applied Data Science, San Jose State University, San Jose, CA, U. S. A.