mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

UAV-CodeAgents: Scalable UAV Mission Planning via Multi-Agent ReAct and Vision-Language Reasoning

arXiv 2505.07236 ↗First posted 12 May 2025cs.RO cs.AIcited by 7

On the map: LLM reasoning → Spatial and embodied reasoning

also in 1 more
Abstract (arXiv)

We present UAV-CodeAgents, a scalable multi-agent framework for autonomous UAV mission generation, built on large language and vision-language models (LLMs/VLMs). The system leverages the ReAct (Reason + Act) paradigm to interpret satellite imagery, ground high-level natural language instructions, and collaboratively generate UAV trajectories with minimal human supervision. A core component is a vision-grounded, pixel-pointing mechanism that enables precise localization of semantic targets on aerial maps. To support real-time adaptability, we introduce a reactive thinking loop, allowing agents to iteratively reflect on observations, revise mission goals, and coordinate dynamically in evolving environments. UAV-CodeAgents is evaluated on large-scale mission scenarios involving industrial and environmental fire detection. Our results show that a lower decoding temperature (0.5) yields higher planning reliability and reduced execution time, with an average mission creation time of 96.96 seconds and a success rate of 93%. We further fine-tune Qwen2.5VL-7B on 9,000 annotated satellite images, achieving strong spatial grounding across diverse visual categories. To foster reproducibility and future research, we will release the full codebase and a novel benchmark dataset for vision-language-based UAV planning.

Key facts. Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in Spatial and embodied reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning. Builds on 18 of its 20 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 12 May 2025.

Builds on

18 of 20 references.

Closest ancestors · 2

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025CognitiveDrone: A VLA Model and Evaluation Benchmark for Real-Time Cognitive Task Solving and Reasoning in UAVs3 Mar
  2. 2024Exploring Spatial Representation to Enhance LLM Reasoning in Aerial Vision-Language Navigation11 Oct

Other references · 16

  1. 2021Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervisioncited by 33,744
  2. 2020An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scalecited by 30,186
  3. 2023GPT-4 Technical Reportcited by 18,396
  4. 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,887
  5. 2023AerialVLN: Vision-and-Language Navigation for UAVscited by 121
  6. 2024Towards Realistic UAV Vision-Language Navigation: Platform, Benchmark, and Methodologycited by 95
  7. 2022Aerial Vision-and-Dialog Navigationcited by 49
  8. 2025UAV-VLA: Vision-Language-Action System for Large Scale Aerial Mission Generationcited by 28
  9. 2025RaceVLA: VLA-based Racing Drone Navigation with Human-like Behaviourcited by 23
  10. 2023Swarm-GPT: Combining Large Language Models with Safe Motion Planning for Robot Choreography Designcited by 15
  11. 2024WildfireGPT: Tailored Large Language Model for Wildfire Analysiscited by 15
  12. 2024FlockGPT: Guiding UAV Flocking with Linguistic Orchestrationcited by 12
4 more
  1. 2025UAV-VLRR: Vision-Language Informed NMPC for Rapid Response in UAV Search and Rescuecited by 7
  2. 2024FlightAR: AR Flight Assistance Interface with Multiple Video Streams and Object Detection Aimed at Immersive Drone Controlcited by 2
  3. 2025UAV-VLPA*: A Vision-Language-Path-Action System for Optimal Route Generation on a Large Scalescited by 1
  4. 2025MorphoNavi: Aerial-Ground Robot Navigation with Object Oriented Mapping in Digital Twincited by 1

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 14 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 3; 2026: 4.

7 papers.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026AgenticSwarm: Semantic Perception and Adaptive Task Allocation for Heterogeneous Multi-UAV Missions ↗
  2. 2026Vision-and-Language Navigation for UAVs: Progress, Challenges, and a Research Roadmap
  3. 2026HEROIC: Heterogeneous Evidential Reasoning for Open-Vocabulary Identification and Cross-Robot Collaboration
  4. 2026Think Like a Pilot: Fine-Grained Long-Horizon UAV Navigation
  5. 2025General-Purpose Aerial Intelligent Agents Empowered by Large Language Models
  6. 2025UAV-VLN: End-to-End Vision Language guided Navigation for UAVs
  7. 2025AGENT: An Aerial Vehicle Generation and Design Tool Using Large Language Models
  8. 2026AeroWeaver: An Embodied-Agent Harness for Weaving Aerial Skills into Distributed, Adaptive Swarm Execution