Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

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Period ending 2026-09-21

27 new papers

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Period ending 2026-09-07

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Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

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Multi-Uav Systems

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Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles

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Aerial Vision-Language Navigation

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Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Tracking

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Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Detection

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Autonomous Drone Navigation

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Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Trajectories

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387 papers

Latest in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

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WorldFly: A World-Model-Based Vision-Language-Action Model for UAV Navigation
Jun 4, 2026Shengtao Zheng, Kai Li, Weichen Zhang +5Aerial Vision-Language Navigation Vision-Language-Action Models
X-Band UAV-enabled Integrated Sensing and Communications for Vehicular Networks
Jun 3, 2026Remon Polus, Soumaya CherkaouiIntegrated Sensing And Communication Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles
Cooperative Circumnavigation for Multiple Unmanned Surface Vehicles Without External Localization
Jun 3, 2026Xueming Liu, Lin Li, Xiang Zhou +2Multi-Uav Systems Robust Formation Control
RSC: Decentralized Rigid Formation Flocking for Large-Scale Swarms via Hybrid Predictive Control and Online Reconfiguration
Jun 2, 2026Ganyu Zou, Linhan Wang, Chen Dai +2Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Swarms Swarms
AgenticDiffusion: Multi-View Reasoning with View-Conditioned Diffusion Planning for Vision-Based UAV Navigation
Jun 2, 2026Faryal Batool, Muhammad Ahsan Mustafa, Fawad Mehboob +2Autonomous Drone Navigation Diffusion Planning
AgenticRL: Self-Refining Agentic Reinforcement Learning for Vision-Conditioned UAV Navigation
Jun 2, 2026Roohan Ahmed Khan, Yasheerah Yaqoot, Amir Atef Habel +2Autonomous Drone Navigation Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
AirDreamer: Generalist Drone Navigation with World Models
Jun 2, 2026Zian Liu, Andong Yang, Chunkai Yang +3Autonomous Drone Navigation Drone
A Game-Theoretic Decision Framework for Optimal Selection of Coordination Detection Methods in Multi-UAV Fleet Operations
Jun 1, 2026Christian Manasseh, Savana AmmonsMulti-Uav Systems Multi-Drone Coordination
Towards Precise Intent-Aligned VLA Aerial Navigation via Expert-Guided GRPO
Jun 1, 2026Tianyang Chen, Wenjun Li, Xin zhou +2Aerial Vision-Language Navigation Vision-Language-Action Models
Autopilot-Preserving Residual Q-Learning with HJB-Inspired Finite-Action Risk Filtering for Fixed-Wing UAV Command Supervision
May 31, 2026Mehmet Iscan, Batuhan TemizQuadrotor Control Model Predictive Control
SEArch: Optimistic Policy Selection Between Scene Noise and Drift for UAV Radar Search
May 31, 2026Noor Khial, Naram Mhaisen, Loay Ismail +1Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Radar
Digital Twin-Assisted Adaptive Multi-Agent DRL for Intelligent Spectrum and Resource Management in Open-RAN UAV-Enabled 6G Networks
May 31, 2026Marwan Dhuheir, Thang X. Vu, Symeon ChatzinotasMulti-Uav Systems Open Radio Access Networks
ImagineUAV: Aerial Vision-Language Navigation via World-Action Modeling and Kinodynamic Planning
May 31, 2026Xuchen Liu, Jiawei Huang, Shihao Xia +3Aerial Vision-Language Navigation Autonomous Drone Navigation
Tether-Aware Dynamic Collision Avoidance for USV-HROV Systems
May 31, 2026Yang Gu, Ziyang Hong, Xuanlin Chen +4Collision Avoidance Multi-Uav Systems
SkyShield: Occupancy as a Safety Interface for Low-Altitude UAV Autonomy
May 30, 2026Jie Gao, Jie Ma, Kaihui Lin +4Unmanned Aerial Vehicles 3D Semantic Occupancy Prediction
Can Aerial VLA Models Cooperate? Evaluating Closed-Loop Air-Ground Coordination with CARLA-Air
May 29, 2026Tianle Zeng, Yanci Wen, Xueang Yu +1Aerial Vision-Language Navigation Multi-Uav Systems
Digital-to-Physical Transfer of Adversarial Patches for Aerial Vehicle Detection
May 29, 2026Jung Heum Woo, Eun-Kyu LeeUnmanned Aerial Vehicle Detection Aerial Dataset
TAE: Target-aware enhancer for nighttime UAV tracking
May 28, 2026Yanyan Chen, Ruigang Fu, Yu Song +1Low-Light Image Enhancement Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Tracking
A Progress-Aware Leader-Follower Midair Docking System for Dual-Drone Aerial Manipulation
May 28, 2026Yifan Cai, Jan Ming Kevin Tan, Xiangqi Li +3Aerial Manipulation Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles
Integrated Exploration-Aware UAV Route Optimization and Path Planning
May 27, 2026Jimin Choi, Grant Stagg, Cameron K. Peterson +1Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Trajectories Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles
Bridging the Sampling Distribution Shift in Radio Map Estimation: A Trajectory-Aware Paradigm
May 27, 2026Feng Qiu, Zheng Fang, Shuhang Zhang +4High-Fidelity Radio Map Construction Trajectory-Aware Differential Aggregation
Dual-branch Distilled Transformer for Efficient Asymmetric UAV Tracking
May 27, 2026Hongtao Yang, Bineng Zhong, Qihua Liang +4Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Tracking Multi-Object Tracking
A Surveillance Evasion Game with Continuous Sensor Redeployment via Bilevel Optimization
May 27, 2026Jaehyeok Kim, Kartik A. Pant, Joseph Kinerson +4Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles Optimal Sensor Placement
Classification and detection of multiple UAVs using rational Gaussian wavelet neural networks
May 25, 2026Ungvári Gergő, Ferenc Braun, Attila Ámon +4Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Detection Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles
LRDDv3: High-Resolution Long-Range Drone Detection Dataset with Range Information and Thermal Data
May 25, 2026Knut Peterson, Zaid Mayers, Azmain Yousuf +5Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Detection Aerial Dataset
Collaborative Threat-Aware Autonomy (CTAA)
May 25, 2026Rajnikant Sharma, Abhinav Sinha, Isaac WeintraubMulti-Uav Systems Collision Avoidance
UAV-OVO: Out-of-Viewpoint Generalization in UAV Action Recognition
May 25, 2026Yu Xia, Zhengbo Zhang, Shuaihu Zhang +1Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Detection Open-Vocabulary Action Recognition
Personalized Federated Learning by Energy-Efficient UAV Communications
May 24, 2026Shiqian Guo, Jianqing Liu, Beatriz LorenzoFederated Learning Wireless Resource Allocation
Evolutionary Enhanced Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Cooperative Air Combat
May 24, 2026Chengwei Li, Junlin Liu, Yang GaoMulti-Agent Reinforcement Learning Multi-Agent Evolution
Vision-Based Agile Landing on Turbulent Waters
May 22, 2026Dimosthenis Angelis, Leonard Bauersfeld, Davide Scaramuzza +1Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Model Predictive Control
Droneulator: A Portable UAV Simulator for Agricultural Workflows with RotorPy and Godot 4
May 22, 2026Jacob Swindell, Michael Lowen, Marija Popovic +1Drone Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles
Decoupling Ego-Motion from Target Dynamics via Dual-Interval Motion Cues for UAV Detection
May 21, 2026Liuyang Wang, Feitian ZhangUnmanned Aerial Vehicle Detection Ego-Motion
Terminal Constraint Model Predictive Control for Image-Based Visual Servoing of UAVs with Kalman Filter-Based Moment Loss Compensation
May 21, 2026X. Wang, Y. Cao, W. L. W. Leong +4Visual Servoing Model Predictive Control
A Camera-Cooperative ISAC Framework for Multimodal Non-Cooperative UAVs Sensing
May 21, 2026Wenfeng Wu, Luping Xiang, Kun YangIntegrated Sensing And Communication Multi-Uav Systems
Non-Contact Vibration-Based Damage Detection of Civil Structures Using a Cost-Effective Autonomous UAV
May 21, 2026Javier Becerril, Maximiliano Vargas, Jennifer Herrera +6Structural Health Monitoring Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles
Hyper-V2X: Hypernetworks for Estimating Epistemic and Aleatoric Uncertainty in Cooperative Bird's-Eye-View Semantic Segmentation
May 20, 2026Abhishek Dinkar Jagtap, Sanath Tiptur Sadashivaiah, Andreas FestagV2X Collaborative Perception
Comparative Analysis of Military Detection Using Drone Imagery Across Multiple Visual Spectrums
May 20, 2026Sourov Roy Shuvo, Prajwal Panth, Rajesh Chowdhury +3Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Detection Real-World Mixed Spectra
Towards UAV Detection in the Real World: A New Multispectral Dataset UAVNet-MS and a New Method
May 20, 2026Yihang Luo, Jun Chen, Chao Xiao +13Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Detection Multiple Hyperspectral Benchmarks
LER-YOLO: Reliability-Aware Expert Routing for Misaligned RGB-Infrared UAV Detection
May 20, 2026Liming Hou, Yueping Peng, Hexiang Hao +6Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Detection Infrared
SkySeg: Collaborative Onboard Semantic Segmentation with Heterogeneous UAVs in the Wild
May 20, 2026Anqi Lu, Yun Cheng, Youbing Hu +3Multi-Uav Systems Dense Semantic Segmentation
Intent-First Aerial V2V for Tactical Coordination and Separation: Protocol and Performance Under Density and Disturbance
May 20, 2026Mehrnaz SabetAir Traffic Control Multi-Uav Systems
KIO-planner: Attention-Guided Single-Stage Motion Planning with Dual Mapping for UAV Navigation
May 19, 2026Dexing Yao, Haochen Li, Junhao Wei +11Autonomous Drone Navigation Motion Planners
FlyMirage: A Fully Automated Generation Pipeline for Diverse and Scalable UAV Flight Data via Generative World Model
May 19, 2026Jinhan Li, Xijie Huang, Zhaoqi Wang +7Aerial Vision-Language Navigation Vision-Language Navigation
Learning-Accelerated Optimization-based Trajectory Planning for Cooperative Aerial-Ground Handover Missions
May 19, 2026Jingshan Chen, Bochen Yu, Henrik Ebel +1Trajectory Optimization Uncrewed Aerial Vehicles
Quantum Machine Learning for Cyber-Physical Anomaly Detection in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles: A Leakage-Free Evaluation with Proxy-Audited Feature Sets
May 19, 2026Carlos A. Durán Paredes, Javier E. León Calderón, Nicolás Sánchez Perea +2Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Detection Quantum Machine Learning
Aerial Inspection Behaviors via RL-based Quadrotor Control for Under-canopy Forest Environments
May 19, 2026Fausto Mauricio Lagos Suarez, Akshit Saradagi, Vidya Sumathy +2Quadrotor Control Iterative Reinforcement Learning
Shared Backbone PPO for Multi-UAV Communication Coverage with Connection Preservation
May 18, 2026Z. JiangMulti-Uav Systems Proximal Policy Optimization
UAVFF3D: A Geometry-Aware Benchmark for Feed-Forward UAV 3D Reconstruction
May 18, 2026Xiang Yang, Yongli Wang, HaiFeng Li +1Feed-Forward 3D Reconstruction 3D Reconstruction
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 Vision-Language Navigation Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Tracking
Distributed 3D Leader-Follower Formation Control with Field-of-View Safety via Control Barrier Functions
May 17, 2026Immanuel R. Santjoko, Richie R. Suganda, Miao Pan +1Robust Formation Control Multi-Uav Systems
World Model-Enabled Causal Digital Twins for Semantic Communications in Physical AI Systems
May 15, 2026Lingyi Wang, Tingyu Shui, Walid Saad +1Digital Twin Framework Semantic Communications
WorldVLN: Autoregressive World Action Model for Aerial Vision-Language Navigation
May 15, 2026Baining Zhao, Jiacheng Xu, Weicheng Feng +13Aerial Vision-Language Navigation Navigation
A Topology-Aware Spatiotemporal Handover Framework for Continuous Multi-UAV Tracking
May 15, 2026Jianlin Ye, Christos Kyrkou, Panayiotis KoliosMulti-Uav Systems Multi-Object Tracking
Highly Detailed and Generalizable Broadleaf Tree Crown Instance Segmentation from UAV Imagery
May 15, 2026Mitsutaka Nakada, Takahiko Ikebata, Kengo Ikebata +7Canopy Aerial Imagery
Wind-Aware Optimal Trajectory Planning for Efficient Gliding of Fixed-Wing Aerial Systems
May 15, 2026Luca Morando, Nishanth Bobbili, Giuseppe LoiannoUnmanned Aerial Vehicle Trajectories Flight Performance
parallelcbf: A composable safety-filter and auditability framework for tensor-parallel reinforcement learning
May 15, 2026Yijun Lu, Zilei Yang, Yuyin MaControl Barrier Functions Adversarial Evaluation
Loiter UAV Reinsertion Guidance for Fixed-wing UAV Corridors
May 13, 2026Pradeep J, Kedarisetty Siddhardha, Ashwini RatnooUncrewed Aerial Vehicles Unmanned Aerial Vehicles
XAI and Statistical Analysis for Reliable Intrusion Detection in the UAVIDS-2025 Dataset: From Tree to Hybrid and Tabular DNN Ensembles
May 13, 2026Iakovos-Christos Zarkadis, Christos DouligerisIntrusion Detection Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Detection
Uncertainty-Aware 3D Position Refinement for Multi-UAV Systems
May 13, 2026Hosam Alamleh, Damir PulatovDrone-View Geo-Localization Multi-Uav Systems
Mobile Traffic Camera Calibration from Road Geometry for UAV-Based Traffic Surveillance
May 12, 2026Alexey Popov, Natalia Trukhina, Vadim VashkelisUnmanned Aerial Vehicle Tracking Camera Intrinsics

Jun 4, 2026 · cs.AIJ/K move · Enter open · S save

WorldFly: A World-Model-Based Vision-Language-Action Model for UAV Navigation

Shengtao Zheng, Kai Li, Weichen Zhang, Yu Meng+4

Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School · BNRist, Tsinghua University

End-to-end Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have shown promise in UAV navigation. However, existing approaches typically rely on historical observations to directly predict actions, often struggling in dense urban environments where severe occlusions and sharp turns result in drastic viewpoint transitions. We argue that the ability to "imagine" future states -- inherent in World Models -- is critical for robust decision-making under such partial observability. To address this, we construct a challenging Urban Canyon Traversal Benchmark, specifically designed to evaluate spatial understanding in scenarios characterized by severe occlusions and drastic viewpoint transitions. To this end, we propose WorldFly, a novel world-model-based VLA framework that employs a dual-branch coupled flow matching mechanism to jointly generate future video predictions and navigation actions, thereby explicitly guiding the agent's policy via spatial imagination. Extensive evaluations on our benchmark demonstrate that WorldFly outperforms other baselines, particularly in unseen environments, validating the effectiveness of integrating world models into embodied aerial agents.

Aerial Vision-Language Navigation Vision-Language-Action Models

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