mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

UAVs Meet Agentic AI: A Multidomain Survey of Autonomous Aerial Intelligence and Agentic UAVs

arXiv 2506.08045 ↗First posted 8 Jun 2025cs.RO cs.AIcited by 13

On the map: LLM agents and tool use → Multimodal and embodied agents

Abstract (arXiv)

Agentic UAVs represent a new frontier in autonomous aerial intelligence, integrating perception, decision-making, memory, and collaborative planning to operate adaptively in complex, real-world environments. Driven by recent advances in Agentic AI, these systems surpass traditional UAVs by exhibiting goal-driven behavior, contextual reasoning, and interactive autonomy. We provide a comprehensive foundation for understanding the architectural components and enabling technologies that distinguish Agentic UAVs from traditional autonomous UAVs. Furthermore, a detailed comparative analysis highlights advancements in autonomy with AI agents, learning, and mission flexibility. This study explores seven high-impact application domains precision agriculture, construction & mining, disaster response, environmental monitoring, infrastructure inspection, logistics, security, and wildlife conservation, illustrating the broad societal value of agentic aerial intelligence. Furthermore, we identify key challenges in technical constraints, regulatory limitations, and data-model reliability, and we present emerging solutions across hardware innovation, learning architectures, and human-AI interaction. Finally, a future roadmap is proposed, outlining pathways toward self-evolving aerial ecosystems, system-level collaboration, and sustainable, equitable deployments. This survey establishes a foundational framework for the future development, deployment, and governance of agentic aerial systems (Agentic UAVs) across diverse societal and industrial domains.

Key facts. Cited by 13 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Multimodal and embodied agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use. Builds on 54 of its 300 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 8 Jun 2025.

Builds on

54 of 300 references.

Closest ancestors · 5

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025BEDI: A Comprehensive Benchmark for Evaluating Embodied Agents on UAVs23 May
  2. 2025UAV-CodeAgents: Scalable UAV Mission Planning via Multi-Agent ReAct and Vision-Language Reasoning12 May
  3. 2025AirVista-II: An Agentic System for Embodied UAVs Toward Dynamic Scene Semantic Understanding13 Apr
  4. 2025General-Purpose Aerial Intelligent Agents Empowered by Large Language Models11 Mar
  5. 2025UAVs Meet LLMs: Overviews and Perspectives Toward Agentic Low-Altitude Mobility4 Jan

Other references · 49

  1. 2023Visual Instruction Tuningcited by 7,792
  2. 2023Improved Baselines with Visual Instruction Tuningcited by 4,362
  3. 2022Flamingo: a Visual Language Model for Few-Shot Learningcited by 4,337
  4. 2023OpenFlamingo: An Open-Source Framework for Training Large Autoregressive Vision-Language Modelscited by 560
  5. 2017Cognitive Mapping and Planning for Visual Navigationcited by 209
  6. 2025AI Agents vs. Agentic AI: A Conceptual Taxonomy, Applications and Challengescited by 167
  7. 2021UAV-Human: A Large Benchmark for Human Behavior Understanding with Unmanned Aerial Vehiclescited by 95
  8. 2025TRiSM for Agentic AI: A Review of Trust, Risk, and Security Management in LLM-based Agentic Multi-Agent Systemscited by 58
  9. 2018Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Based Resource Allocation for UAV Networkscited by 54
  10. 2018Reinforcement Learning for UAV Attitude Controlcited by 40
  11. 2025Multi-agent Embodied AI: Advances and Future Directionscited by 36
  12. 2024Large Language Models for UAVs: Current State and Pathways to the Futurecited by 33
37 more
  1. 2019Accessing From The Sky: A Tutorial on UAV Communications for 5G and Beyondcited by 27
  2. 2024A comprehensive survey of research towards AI-enabled unmanned aerial systems in pre-, active-, and post-wildfire managementcited by 23
  3. 2025FlightGPT: Towards Generalizable and Interpretable UAV Vision-and-Language Navigation with Vision-Language Modelscited by 22
  4. 2018Memory-based Deep Reinforcement Learning for Obstacle Avoidance in UAV with Limited Environment Knowledgecited by 21
  5. 2024FLoRA: Enhancing Vision-Language Models with Parameter-Efficient Federated Learningcited by 16
  6. 2022A Review on Viewpoints and Path-planning for UAV-based 3D Reconstructioncited by 14
  7. 2019Reinforcement Learning in Multiple-UAV Networks: Deployment and Movement Designcited by 13
  8. 2022DL-DRL: A double-level deep reinforcement learning approach for large-scale task scheduling of multi-UAVcited by 9
  9. 2024Human-In-The-Loop Machine Learning for Safe and Ethical Autonomous Vehicles: Principles, Challenges, and Opportunitiescited by 6
  10. 2025UAV-VLRR: Vision-Language Informed NMPC for Rapid Response in UAV Search and Rescuecited by 6
  11. 2020Artificial Intelligence Aided Next-Generation Networks Relying on UAVscited by 5
  12. 2022Thermal and Visual Tracking of Photovoltaic Plants for Autonomous UAV inspectioncited by 5
  13. 2024Age of Information Minimization using Multi-agent UAVs based on AI-Enhanced Mean Field Resource Allocationcited by 5
  14. 2024DNN Task Assignment in UAV Networks: A Generative AI Enhanced Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning Approachcited by 5
  15. 2025VLM-RRT: Vision Language Model Guided RRT Search for Autonomous UAV Navigationcited by 5
  16. 2019A Game of Drones: Cyber-Physical Security of Time-Critical UAV Applications with Cumulative Prospect Theory Perceptions and Valuationscited by 4
  17. 2025An Efficient Ground-aerial Transportation System for Pest Control Enabled by AI-based Autonomous Nano-UAVscited by 4
  18. 2025Wireless Agentic AI with Retrieval-Augmented Multimodal Semantic Perceptioncited by 4
  19. 2022Roofline Model for UAVs: A Bottleneck Analysis Tool for Onboard Compute Characterization of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehiclescited by 3
  20. 2023Real-time Aerial Detection and Reasoning on Embedded-UAVscited by 3
  21. 2024FlexiFly: Interfacing the Physical World with Foundation Models Empowered by Reconfigurable Drone Systemscited by 3
  22. 2024Latency Minimization for UAV-Enabled Federated Learning: Trajectory Design and Resource Allocationcited by 3
  23. 2025Deep Reinforcement Learning based Autonomous Decision-Making for Cooperative UAVs: A Search and Rescue Real World Applicationcited by 3
  24. 2025Task Assignment and Exploration Optimization for Low Altitude UAV Rescue via Generative AI Enhanced Multi-agent Reinforcement Learningcited by 3
  25. 2017Security, Privacy and Safety Evaluation of Dynamic and Static Fleets of Dronescited by 2
  26. 2021Explaining Autonomous Decisions in Swarms of Human-on-the-Loop Small Unmanned Aerial Systemscited by 2
  27. 2022Site-specific weed management in corn using UAS imagery analysis and computer vision techniquescited by 2
  28. 2024Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Offloading Cellular Communications with Cooperating UAVscited by 2
  29. 2025When Uncertainty Leads to Unsafety: Empirical Insights into the Role of Uncertainty in Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Safetycited by 2
  30. 2020An agent-based self-protective method to secure communication between UAVs in unmanned aerial vehicle networkscited by 1
  31. 2022Using UAS Imagery and Computer Vision to Support Site-Specific Weed Control in Corncited by 1
  32. 2022Drone Delivery Systems and Energy Management: A Review and Future Trendscited by 1
  33. 2024Extending QGroundControl for Automated Mission Planning of UAVscited by 1
  34. 2025Agent-Based Simulation of UAV Battery Recharging for IoT Applications: Precision Agriculture, Disaster Recovery, and Dengue Vector Controlcited by 1
  35. 2025Energy Aware and Safe Path Planning for Unmanned Aircraft Systemscited by 1
  36. 2025EdgeAI Drone for Autonomous Construction Site Demonstratorcited by 1
  37. 2025Duawlfin: A Drone with Unified Actuation for Wheeled Locomotion and Flight Operationcited by 1

Built on by

Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2025: 1; 2026: 12.

13 papers.

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By area:

  1. 2026AerialVLA: A Vision-Language-Action Model for UAV Navigation via Minimalist End-to-End Controlcited by 11
  2. 2026APEX: A Decoupled Memory-based Explorer for Asynchronous Aerial Object Goal Navigationcited by 5
  3. 2026ESARBench: A Benchmark for Agentic UAV Embodied Search and Rescuecited by 4
  4. 2025A Hierarchical Agentic Framework for Autonomous Drone-Based Visual Inspectioncited by 3
  5. 2026An LLM-Agnostic, MAVLink-Based Drone Command and Control Interface and Agentic Harness Using the Model Context Protocolcited by 1
  6. 2026Reasoning Knowledge-Gap in Drone Planning via LLM-based Active Elicitationcited by 1
  7. 2026Selective Agentic Recovery for UAV Autonomy with a Persistent Mission Runtimecited by 1
  8. 2026AeroDPO: Unleashing Lightweight UAV Navigation with High-Fidelity Perception and Automated Preference Optimizationcited by 1
  9. 2026PEACE: A Planner-Executor Agent with Constraint Enforcement for UAVscited by 0
  10. 2026LLM-Centric Agentic AI for UAV Swarms: Architecture, Enabling Technologies, and Open Problemscited by 0
  11. 2026DAPM: UAV Monocular Depth Estimation from Any Height, Pitch, Roll and FOVcited by 0
  12. 2026Agentic AI for Safety-critical Multi-drone Systems: Challenges and Opportunitiescited by 0
1 more
  1. 2026Managing Context and Communication in Distributed Agentic UAV Swarmscited by 0

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2026Neuro-Symbolic Agentic AI for Networked Low-Altitude UAVs
  2. 2026Agentic AI Meets Edge Computing in Autonomous UAV Swarms
  3. 2026UAVs Meet Embodied Intelligence: Bridging Human Intents and Flying Dynamics Via Harnessing Physical-Digital AI Agents
  4. 2026AeroWeaver: An Embodied-Agent Harness for Weaving Aerial Skills into Distributed, Adaptive Swarm Execution
  5. 2026PhysAI-Bench: A Benchmark for LLM-Based Agentic Decision-Making in Autonomous UAV-Centric Physical AI
  6. 2025Agentic UAVs: LLM-Driven Autonomy with Integrated Tool-Calling and Cognitive Reasoning
  7. 2026AerialClaw: An Open-Source Framework for LLM-Driven Autonomous Aerial Agents
  8. 2026AgenticSwarm: Semantic Perception and Adaptive Task Allocation for Heterogeneous Multi-UAV Missions ↗