# DroneVLA: VLA based Aerial Manipulation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.13809 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.13809/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 16 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 20 Jan 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [Grounding DINO: Marrying DINO with Grounded Pre-Training for Open-Set Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.05499/) (2023)
- [TinyVLA: Towards Fast, Data-Efficient Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.12514/) (2024)
- [UAV-VLA: Vision-Language-Action System for Large Scale Aerial Mission Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.05014/) (2025)
- [RaceVLA: VLA-based Racing Drone Navigation with Human-like Behaviour](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.02572/) (2025)
- [Flying Calligrapher: Contact-Aware Motion and Force Planning and Control for Aerial Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.05587/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Vision-Language-Action Safety: Threats, Challenges, Evaluations, and Mechanisms](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.23775/) (2026)
- [Aero-World: Action-Conditioned Aerial Video Generation from Inertial Controls](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.19728/) (2026)
- [Vision Language Action (VLA) Models for Unmanned Aerial Robotics and Bimanual Manipulation: A Review](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.06706/) (2026)
- [AeroManip-VLA: Scalable Vision-Language-Action Learning for Aerial Manipulation with RL-Generated Demonstrations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.36915/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

As aerial platforms evolve from passive observers to active manipulators, the challenge shifts toward designing intuitive interfaces that allow non-expert users to command these systems naturally. This work introduces a novel concept of autonomous aerial manipulation system capable of interpreting high-level natural language commands to retrieve objects and deliver them to a human user. The system is intended to integrate a MediaPipe based on Grounding DINO and a Vision-Language-Action (VLA) model with a custom-built drone equipped with a 1-DOF gripper and an Intel RealSense RGB-D camera. VLA performs semantic reasoning to interpret the intent of a user prompt and generates a prioritized task queue for grasping of relevant objects in the scene. Grounding DINO and dynamic A* planning algorithm are used to navigate and safely relocate the object. To ensure safe and natural interaction during the handover phase, the system employs a human-centric controller driven by MediaPipe. This module provides real-time human pose estimation, allowing the drone to employ visual servoing to maintain a stable, distinct position directly in front of the user, facilitating a comfortable handover. We demonstrate the system's efficacy through real-world experiments for localization and navigation, which resulted in a 0.164m, 0.070m, and 0.084m of max, mean euclidean, and root-mean squared errors, respectively, highlighting the feasibility of VLA for aerial manipulation operations.