# HoverAI: An Embodied Aerial Agent for Natural Human-Drone Interaction

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.13801 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.13801/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Multimodal and embodied agents, one of 16 directions in LLM agents and tool use.
- Builds on 4 of its 17 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Jan 2026.

## Placed in

- LLM agents and tool use / [Multimodal and embodied agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/multimodal-and-embodied-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [XTTS: a Massively Multilingual Zero-Shot Text-to-Speech Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04904/) (2024)
- [Embodied AI Agents: Modeling the World](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.22355/) (2025)
- [CognitiveDrone: A VLA Model and Evaluation Benchmark for Real-Time Cognitive Task Solving and Reasoning in UAVs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.01378/) (2025)
- [Display of 3D Illuminations using Flying Light Specks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.08346/) (2022)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Drones operating in human-occupied spaces suffer from insufficient communication mechanisms that create uncertainty about their intentions. We present HoverAI, an embodied aerial agent that integrates drone mobility, infrastructure-independent visual projection, and real-time conversational AI into a unified platform. Equipped with a MEMS laser projector, onboard semi-rigid screen, and RGB camera, HoverAI perceives users through vision and voice, responding via lip-synced avatars that adapt appearance to user demographics. The system employs a multimodal pipeline combining VAD, ASR (Whisper), LLM-based intent classification, RAG for dialogue, face analysis for personalization, and voice synthesis (XTTS v2). Evaluation demonstrates high accuracy in command recognition (F1: 0.90), demographic estimation (gender F1: 0.89, age MAE: 5.14 years), and speech transcription (WER: 0.181). By uniting aerial robotics with adaptive conversational AI and self-contained visual output, HoverAI introduces a new class of spatially-aware, socially responsive embodied agents for applications in guidance, assistance, and human-centered interaction.