mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

RL for robot navigation and UAV control

579 papers3 this weekLow confidence in this grouping: the papers may belong to more than one topic, or the group may changeLow confidence in this grouping: the papers may belong to more than one topic, or the group may change · About

Keywords: navigation, reinforcement, reinforcement learning, control, deep

Key facts. RL for robot navigation and UAV control: 579 papers on arXiv since 2024 (data through 14 Oct 2026). 13 of its 579 mapped papers (2%) cite “Demonstrating Agile Flight from Pixels without State Estimation” (2024, arXiv 2406.12505). 13 new papers 30 Sep–14 Oct.

What’s new

30 Sep – 14 Oct 2026

13 new papers, 30 Sep – 14 Oct; 3 this week.

  1. This week · 3
  2. Adversarial Reinforcement Learning for Robust Planetary Landing
  3. E2DRL: End-to-End Differentiable Reinforcement Learning for 3D Obstacle Avoidance in Quadruped Robots also fits: RL for robot locomotion and manipulation
  4. From Orbit Matching to Docking: A Hierarchical Reinforcement-Learning Approach to Multiphase Rendezvous Trajectory Design
  5. Earlier · 10
  6. Phase-Gated Constrained Reinforcement Learning for End-to-End Capture and Detumbling of Non-Cooperative Targets
  7. Reinforcement Learning Based Heterogeneous Task Allocation Under Spatio-Temporal Environmental Uncertainty for Multi-Robot Teams
  8. Sim-to-Real RL for ASVs using SysID
  9. Visual Swarm Navigation via Deep Reinforcement Learning and Evolutionary Hybrid Design
  10. Transporting Unsecured Stacked Payloads with a Quadrupedal Robot via Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning
  11. End-to-End Safe Social Navigation via Multi-Task Reinforcement Learning and Probabilistic Perception also fits: RL for robot locomotion and manipulation
  12. A Unified Dynamics Framework for Reinforcement Learning and Classical Control of a Six-DOF Pipeline-Tracking ROV in NVIDIA Isaac Sim
All 13
  1. Barrier-Shaped Recurrent Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Landing on a Heaving Ship Deck
  2. Reachability-Informed Reinforcement Learning for Multi-Impulse Interplanetary Transfers
  3. RL-Guided PAC-NMPC for Probabilistically-Safe Perception-Based Navigation in Unknown Environments also fits: Safe and constrained RL

Foundations

Most cited by papers here

  1. Demonstrating Agile Flight from Pixels without State Estimation2024cited by 13 here
  2. Bootstrapping Reinforcement Learning with Imitation for Vision-Based Agile Flight2024cited by 11 here
  3. Multi-Task Reinforcement Learning for Quadrotors2024cited by 11 here
  4. NavRL: Learning Safe Flight in Dynamic Environments2024cited by 9 here
  5. MAVRL: Learn to Fly in Cluttered Environments with Varying Speed2024cited by 8 here

Lineage

The papers this direction builds on, oldest first.

Each paper on the line cites the one before.

  1. 2024Demonstrating Agile Flight from Pixels without State Estimationcited by 13 here
  2. 2024Learning Quadrotor Control From Visual Features Using Differentiable Simulationcited by 6 here
  3. 2025Flying on Point Clouds with Reinforcement Learningcited by 4 here
21 more it builds on, not in this chain
  1. 2024Sharing Knowledge in Multi-Task Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 3 here
  2. 2024Reinforcement Learning for Collision-free Flight Exploiting Deep Collision Encodingcited by 7 here
  3. 2024Deep Reinforcement Learning with Dynamic Graphs for Adaptive Informative Path Planningcited by 3 here
  4. 2024MAVRL: Learn to Fly in Cluttered Environments with Varying Speedcited by 8 here
  5. 2024Socially Integrated Navigation: A Social Acting Robot with Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 4 here
  6. 2024Deep Reinforcement Learning-based Large-scale Robot Explorationcited by 4 here
  7. 2024Bootstrapping Reinforcement Learning with Imitation for Vision-Based Agile Flightcited by 11 here
  8. 2024TDANet: Target-Directed Attention Network For Object-Goal Visual Navigation With Zero-Shot Abilitycited by 3 here
  9. 2024Q-learning with temporal memory to navigate turbulencecited by 4 here
  10. 2024Reinforcement learningcited by 8 here
  11. 2024TD3 Based Collision Free Motion Planning for Robot Navigationcited by 3 here
  12. 2024Deep Reinforcement Learning with Enhanced PPO for Safe Mobile Robot Navigationcited by 3 here
  13. 2024Reinforcement Learning Meets Visual Odometrycited by 4 here
  14. 2024Gymnasium: A Standard Interface for Reinforcement Learning Environmentscited by 13 here
  15. 2024Deep Reinforcement Learning for Robotics: A Survey of Real-World Successescited by 9 here
  16. 2024Introduction to Reinforcement Learningcited by 4 here
  17. 2024NavRL: Learning Safe Flight in Dynamic Environmentscited by 9 here
  18. 2024The Power of Input: Benchmarking Zero-Shot Sim-To-Real Transfer of Reinforcement Learning Control Policies for Quadrotor Controlcited by 4 here
  19. 2024Multi-Task Reinforcement Learning for Quadrotorscited by 11 here
  20. 2025Quadrotor Navigation using Reinforcement Learning with Privileged Informationcited by 4 here
  21. 2025RSL-RL: A Learning Library for Robotics Researchcited by 7 here

The 24 most cited of 254.

Browse

30 of 579, ranked 6–35

  1. 6Reinforcement learning20248
  2. 7Reinforcement Learning for Collision-free Flight Exploiting Deep Collision Encoding20247
  3. 8Learning Quadrotor Control From Visual Features Using Differentiable Simulation20246
  4. 9Flying on Point Clouds with Reinforcement Learning20254
  5. 10Quadrotor Navigation using Reinforcement Learning with Privileged Information20254
  6. 11Socially Integrated Navigation: A Social Acting Robot with Deep Reinforcement Learning20244
  7. 12Deep Reinforcement Learning-based Large-scale Robot Exploration20244
  8. 13Q-learning with temporal memory to navigate turbulence20244
  9. 14Reinforcement Learning Meets Visual Odometry20244
  10. 15The Power of Input: Benchmarking Zero-Shot Sim-To-Real Transfer of Reinforcement Learning Control Policies for Quadrotor Control20244
All 30
  1. 16TACO: General Acrobatic Flight Control via Target-and-Command-Oriented Reinforcement Learning20253
  2. 17Reactive Aerobatic Flight via Reinforcement Learning20253
  3. 18Enhancing Efficiency and Propulsion in Bio-mimetic Robotic Fish through End-to-End Deep Reinforcement Learning20253
  4. 19Deep Reinforcement Learning with Dynamic Graphs for Adaptive Informative Path Planning20243
  5. 20TDANet: Target-Directed Attention Network For Object-Goal Visual Navigation With Zero-Shot Ability20243
  6. 21TD3 Based Collision Free Motion Planning for Robot Navigation20243
  7. 22Deep Reinforcement Learning with Enhanced PPO for Safe Mobile Robot Navigation20243
  8. 23A Deep Reinforcement Learning Framework and Methodology for Reducing the Sim-to-Real Gap in ASV Navigation20243
  9. 24VisFly: An Efficient and Versatile Simulator for Training Vision-based Flight20243
  10. 25Learning to Swim: Reinforcement Learning for 6-DOF Control of Thruster-driven Autonomous Underwater Vehicles20243
  11. 26Environment as Policy: Learning to Race in Unseen Tracks20243
  12. 27Meta-Reinforcement Learning for Robust and Non-greedy Control Barrier Functions in Spacecraft Proximity Operations20262
  13. 28Application of Deep Reinforcement Learning to UAV Swarming for Ground Surveillance20252
  14. 29Motion Control in Multi-Rotor Aerial Robots Using Deep Reinforcement Learning20252
  15. 30MarineGym: A High-Performance Reinforcement Learning Platform for Underwater Robotics20252
  16. 31COLSON: Controllable Learning-Based Social Navigation via Diffusion-Based Reinforcement Learning20252
  17. 32Semantically-driven Deep Reinforcement Learning for Inspection Path Planning20252
  18. 33RoboRAN: A Unified Robotics Framework for Reinforcement Learning-Based Autonomous Navigation20252
  19. 34Learned Controllers for Agile Quadrotors in Pursuit-Evasion Games20252
  20. 35Leveling the Playing Field: Carefully Comparing Classical and Learned Controllers for Quadrotor Trajectory Tracking20252