# DiffAero: A GPU-Accelerated Differentiable Simulation Framework for Efficient Quadrotor Policy Learning

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.10247 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.10247/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 25 of its 36 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Sep 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 25 of 25)

- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.06347/) (2017)
- [Isaac Gym: High Performance GPU-Based Physics Simulation For Robot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.10470/) (2021)
- [The Surprising Effectiveness of PPO in Cooperative, Multi-Agent Games](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01955/) (2021)
- [AirSim: High-Fidelity Visual and Physical Simulation for Autonomous Vehicles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.05065/) (2017)
- [Learning to Walk in Minutes Using Massively Parallel Deep Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.11978/) (2021)
- [Brax -- A Differentiable Physics Engine for Large Scale Rigid Body Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.13281/) (2021)
- [Learning High-Speed Flight in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.05113/) (2021)
- [Accelerated Policy Learning with Parallel Differentiable Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.07137/) (2022)
- [STORM: Efficient Stochastic Transformer based World Models for Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.09615/) (2023)
- [Flightmare: A Flexible Quadrotor Simulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.00563/) (2020)
- [Learning to Fly -- a Gym Environment with PyBullet Physics for Reinforcement Learning of Multi-agent Quadcopter Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02142/) (2021)
- [Deep Drone Acrobatics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.05768/) (2020)
- [Back to Newton's Laws: Learning Vision-based Agile Flight via Differentiable Physics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10648/) (2024)
- [OmniDrones: An Efficient and Flexible Platform for Reinforcement Learning in Drone Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.12825/) (2023)
- [CGD: Constraint-Guided Diffusion Policies for UAV Trajectory Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.01758/) (2024)
- [Learning Quadrotor Control From Visual Features Using Differentiable Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.15979/) (2024)
- [End-to-end Reinforcement Learning for Time-Optimal Quadcopter Flight](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16948/) (2023)
- [Aerial Gym Simulator: A Framework for Highly Parallelized Simulation of Aerial Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.01471/) (2025)
- [Seeing Through Pixel Motion: Learning Obstacle Avoidance from Optical Flow with One Camera](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.04413/) (2024)
- [What Matters in Learning A Zero-Shot Sim-to-Real RL Policy for Quadrotor Control? A Comprehensive Study](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.11764/) (2024)
- [VisFly: An Efficient and Versatile Simulator for Training Vision-based Flight](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.14783/) (2024)
- [Robust Navigation for Racing Drones based on Imitation Learning and Modularization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.12923/) (2021)
- [Efficient and Robust Time-Optimal Trajectory Planning and Control for Agile Quadrotor Flight](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.02772/) (2023)
- [Towards Task-Oriented Flying: Framework, Infrastructure, and Principles](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.15129/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [FlowPilot: Real-Time World-Action Modeling for Agile UAV Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.00635/) (2026)
- [Crazyflow: An Accurate, GPU-Accelerated, Differentiable Drone Simulator in JAX](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.01478/) (2026)
- [ClearNav: Perception-Aligned Quadrotor Flight Using Differential-Physics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2610.17419/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

This letter introduces DiffAero, a lightweight, GPU-accelerated, and fully differentiable simulation framework designed for efficient quadrotor control policy learning. DiffAero supports both environment-level and agent-level parallelism and integrates multiple dynamics models, customizable sensor stacks (IMU, depth camera, and LiDAR), and diverse flight tasks within a unified, GPU-native training interface. By fully parallelizing both physics and rendering on the GPU, DiffAero eliminates CPU-GPU data transfer bottlenecks and delivers orders-of-magnitude improvements in simulation throughput. In contrast to existing simulators, DiffAero not only provides high-performance simulation but also serves as a research platform for exploring differentiable and hybrid learning algorithms. Extensive benchmarks and real-world flight experiments demonstrate that DiffAero and hybrid learning algorithms combined can learn robust flight policies in hours on consumer-grade hardware. The code is available at https://github.com/flyingbitac/diffaero.