mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

Learning End-to-End Control for Omnidirectional Aerial Motion on Overactuated Tilt-rotor Quadrotors

arXiv 2602.21583 ↗First posted 25 Feb 2026cs.ROcited by 0

On the map: Deep reinforcement learning methods → RL for robot navigation and UAV control

Abstract (arXiv)

While reinforcement learning (RL) has been successfully applied to conventional quadrotors for agile and robust flight, whether actuator-level RL can be reliably deployed on tilt-rotor aerial robots remains an open question, as the hybrid actuation coupling brushless rotors with rotational joints introduces a substantially harder sim-to-real gap. In this work, we propose an end-to-end RL framework for omnidirectional motion control on overactuated tilt-rotor quadrotors, directly mapping target poses to joint and rotor commands. The learning framework combines actuator-level simulation with an asymmetric actor-critic architecture for 6D pose-reaching. For reliable sim-to-real transfer on the hybrid actuation, we integrate system identification with minimal yet physically grounded domain randomization. The trained policy is deployed zero-shot on real hardware and evaluated across waypoint hovering, external disturbances, payload variation and trajectory tracking, together with simulated traversal of allocation-singular configurations. The policy is compared with a state-of-the-art NMPC baseline: NMPC attains lower steady-state position error, whereas the RL policy offers a more uniform orientation error across evaluations, transitions between poses faster, and requires less onboard computation.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Placed in RL for robot navigation and UAV control, one of 15 directions in Deep reinforcement learning methods. Builds on 23 of its 30 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 25 Feb 2026.

Builds on

23 of 30 references.

Closest ancestors · 1

Same direction, newest first

  1. 2025Leveling the Playing Field: Carefully Comparing Classical and Learned Controllers for Quadrotor Trajectory Tracking21 Jun

Other references · 22

  1. 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithmscited by 15,215
  2. 2018On the Continuity of Rotation Representations in Neural Networkscited by 1,214
  3. 2018Sim-to-Real: Learning Agile Locomotion For Quadruped Robotscited by 319
  4. 2017Asymmetric Actor Critic for Image-Based Robot Learningcited by 238
  5. 2023Reaching the Limit in Autonomous Racing: Optimal Control versus Reinforcement Learningcited by 111
  6. 2017Control of a Quadrotor with Reinforcement Learningcited by 92
  7. 2022Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes in Robotics: A Surveycited by 86
  8. 2022Neural-Fly Enables Rapid Learning for Agile Flight in Strong Windscited by 85
  9. 2025RSL-RL: A Learning Library for Robotics Researchcited by 49
  10. 2022A Benchmark Comparison of Learned Control Policies for Agile Quadrotor Flightcited by 47
  11. 2025Gallant: Voxel Grid-based Humanoid Locomotion and Local-navigation across 3D Constrained Terrainscited by 15
  12. 2025UMI-on-Air: Embodiment-Aware Guidance for Embodiment-Agnostic Visuomotor Policiescited by 11
10 more
  1. 2025RAPTOR: A Foundation Policy for Quadrotor Controlcited by 8
  2. 2020Design and optimal control of a tiltrotor micro aerial vehicle for efficient omnidirectional flightcited by 3
  3. 2021Low-level Pose Control of Tilting Multirotor for Wall Perching Tasks Using Reinforcement Learningcited by 2
  4. 2025Autonomous Aerial Manipulation at Arbitrary Pose in SE(3) with Robust Control and Whole-body Planningcited by 2
  5. 2022MPC with Learned Residual Dynamics with Application on Omnidirectional MAVscited by 1
  6. 2023Learning to Fly Omnidirectional Micro Aerial Vehicles with an End-To-End Control Networkcited by 1
  7. 2024BEATLE -- Self-Reconfigurable Aerial Robot: Design, Control and Experimental Validationcited by 1
  8. 2024Servo Integrated Nonlinear Model Predictive Control for Overactuated Tiltable-Quadrotorscited by 1
  9. 2024Allocation for Omnidirectional Aerial Robots: Incorporating Power Dynamicscited by 1
  10. 2025Six-DoF Hand-Based Teleoperation for Omnidirectional Aerial Robotscited by 1

Built on by

Not cited yet.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025Global End-Effector Pose Control of an Underactuated Aerial Manipulator via Reinforcement Learning
  2. 2025Reactive Aerobatic Flight via Reinforcement Learning
  3. 2026AcroRL: Learning Aggressive Quadrotor Inversion using Bidirectional Thrust ↗
  4. 2026Reinforcement Learning with Inner-loop Dynamics Estimator for Aerial Manipulation under Uncertainty
  5. 2026Physics-Aware End-to-End Deep Reinforcement Learning for Quadcopter Control with Actuator Dynamics
  6. 2025Dynamics-Invariant Quadrotor Control using Scale-Aware Deep Reinforcement Learning
  7. 2026Precise Aggressive Aerial Maneuvers with Sensorimotor Policies
  8. 2025Towards Task-Oriented Flying: Framework, Infrastructure, and Principles