mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

UAV-VLA: Vision-Language-Action System for Large Scale Aerial Mission Generation

arXiv 2501.05014 ↗First posted 9 Jan 2025cs.RO cs.AI cs.CVcited by 28

Not on the map. Why?

Abstract (arXiv)

The UAV-VLA (Visual-Language-Action) system is a tool designed to facilitate communication with aerial robots. By integrating satellite imagery processing with the Visual Language Model (VLM) and the powerful capabilities of GPT, UAV-VLA enables users to generate general flight paths-and-action plans through simple text requests. This system leverages the rich contextual information provided by satellite images, allowing for enhanced decision-making and mission planning. The combination of visual analysis by VLM and natural language processing by GPT can provide the user with the path-and-action set, making aerial operations more efficient and accessible. The newly developed method showed the difference in the length of the created trajectory in 22% and the mean error in finding the objects of interest on a map in 34.22 m by Euclidean distance in the K-Nearest Neighbors (KNN) approach.

Key facts. Cited by 28 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 16 of its 21 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 9 Jan 2025.

Builds on

16 of 21 references.

References · 16

  1. 2017Attention Is All You Needcited by 60,361
  2. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
  3. 2020An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scalecited by 30,186
  4. 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,396
  5. 2023RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Controlcited by 3,080
  6. 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,887
  7. 2022RT-1: Robotics Transformer for Real-World Control at Scalecited by 2,061
  8. 2023AerialVLN: Vision-and-Language Navigation for UAVscited by 121
  9. 2024Towards Realistic UAV Vision-Language Navigation: Platform, Benchmark, and Methodologycited by 95
  10. 2022Aerial Vision-and-Dialog Navigationcited by 49
  11. 2024CityNav: A Large-Scale Dataset for Real-World Aerial Navigationcited by 42
  12. 2024Bi-VLA: Vision-Language-Action Model-Based System for Bimanual Robotic Dexterous Manipulationscited by 21
4 more
  1. 2024Exploring Spatial Representation to Enhance LLM Reasoning in Aerial Vision-Language Navigationcited by 20
  2. 2023A Safer Vision-based Autonomous Planning System for Quadrotor UAVs with Dynamic Obstacle Trajectory Prediction and Its Application with LLMscited by 13
  3. 2024FlightAR: AR Flight Assistance Interface with Multiple Video Streams and Object Detection Aimed at Immersive Drone Controlcited by 2
  4. 2024MissionGPT: Mission Planner for Mobile Robot based on Robotics Transformer Modelcited by 2

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Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 14; 2026: 14.

28 papers.

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  1. 2025Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotics: A Review Towards Real-World Applicationscited by 84
  2. 2025Pure Vision Language Action (VLA) Models: A Comprehensive Surveycited by 49
  3. 2025Vision Language Action Models in Robotic Manipulation: A Systematic Reviewcited by 38
  4. 2025RaceVLA: VLA-based Racing Drone Navigation with Human-like Behaviourcited by 23
  5. 2025CognitiveDrone: A VLA Model and Evaluation Benchmark for Real-Time Cognitive Task Solving and Reasoning in UAVscited by 22
  6. 2025FlightGPT: Towards Generalizable and Interpretable UAV Vision-and-Language Navigation with Vision-Language Modelscited by 22
  7. 2025See, Point, Fly: A Learning-Free VLM Framework for Universal Unmanned Aerial Navigationcited by 18
  8. 2025LongFly: Long-Horizon UAV Vision-and-Language Navigation with Spatiotemporal Context Integrationcited by 14
  9. 2026AerialVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Model for UAV Navigation via Minimalist End-to-End Controlcited by 11
  10. 2025Is your VLM Sky-Ready? A Comprehensive Spatial Intelligence Benchmark for UAV Navigationcited by 10
  11. 2025UAV-CodeAgents: Scalable UAV Mission Planning via Multi-Agent ReAct and Vision-Language Reasoningcited by 7
  12. 2026Inject Once Survive Later: Backdooring Vision-Language-Action Models to Persist Through Downstream Fine-tuningcited by 7
16 more
  1. 2026AIR-VLA: Vision-Language-Action Systems for Aerial Manipulationcited by 6
  2. 2025AERMANI-VLM: Structured Prompting and Reasoning for Aerial Manipulation with Vision Language Modelscited by 4
  3. 2026DroneVLA: VLA based Aerial Manipulationcited by 4
  4. 2026AugVLA-3D: Depth-Driven Feature Augmentation for Vision-Language-Action Modelscited by 4
  5. 2026Fly0: Persistent Metric Anchoring for Zero-Shot Aerial Vision-Language Navigationcited by 4
  6. 2026Large Language Model-Assisted UAV Operations and Communications: A Multifaceted Survey and Tutorialcited by 4
  7. 2025UnderwaterVLA: Dual-brain Vision-Language-Action architecture for Autonomous Underwater Navigationcited by 3
  8. 2025Embodied4C: Measuring What Matters for Embodied Vision-Language Navigationcited by 3
  9. 2026HumanDiffusion: A Vision-Based Diffusion Trajectory Planner with Human-Conditioned Goals for Search and Rescue UAVcited by 1
  10. 2026Towards Precise Intent-Aligned VLA Aerial Navigation via Expert-Guided GRPOcited by 1
  11. 2026CosFly-VLA: A Spatially Aware Vision-Language-Action Model for UAV Trackingcited by 1
  12. 2026From Semantic Grounding to Decision Optimization: A Unified Framework for Long-Horizon UAV Vision-Language Navigationcited by 1
  13. 2025FlightDiffusion: Revolutionising Autonomous Drone Training with Diffusion Models Generating FPV Videocited by 0
  14. 2026DiffusionCinema: Text-to-Aerial Cinematographycited by 0
  15. 2026RACO: Reliability-Aware Coarse-Goal Optimization for Inspection-Oriented UAV Vision-Language Navigationcited by 0
  16. 2026WareFly-VLA: A Vision-Language-Action Framework for UAV Navigation and Human Tracking in Smart Warehousescited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025UAV-VLPA*: A Vision-Language-Path-Action System for Optimal Route Generation on a Large Scales
  2. 2025VLA-AN: An Efficient and Onboard Vision-Language-Action Framework for Aerial Navigation in Complex Environments
  3. 2026Vision Language Action (VLA) Models for Unmanned Aerial Robotics and Bimanual Manipulation: A Review
  4. 2026Vision-Language Navigation for Aerial Robots: Towards the Era of Large Language Models
  5. 2026Vision-and-Language Navigation for UAVs: Progress, Challenges, and a Research Roadmap
  6. 2025VLM-RRT: Vision Language Model Guided RRT Search for Autonomous UAV Navigation
  7. 2025OpenVLN: Open-world Aerial Vision-Language Navigation
  8. 2026A Systems Engineering Framework for Vision-Language-Enabled UAV Triage and Disaster Response