mlsanityData to 14 Oct 2026

FALCON-S: Fixed-wing ground-effect Aerodynamics Simulator and Flight Control Learning Suite

arXiv 2609.06046 ↗First posted 5 Sep 2026cs.RO cs.LG cs.SYcited by 0

Not on the map. Why?

Abstract (arXiv)

We present a modular, high-fidelity simulation framework for the development and benchmarking of flight control strategies in fixed-wing aerial robots operating near the ground. Unlike existing simulators that rely on simplified or hover-oriented dynamics, our framework models full 6DoF rigid-body physics, semi-empirical ground-effect aerodynamics, actuator dynamics, sensor noise, and environmental disturbances. This physical realism, combined with modular component design, enables systematic analysis of low-altitude flight behavior under realistic conditions. The simulator supports both CPU and GPU backends via Torch and NVIDIA Warp, enabling high-throughput parallel execution suitable for large-scale reinforcement learning training and optimal control rollouts. A unified interface accommodates a range of controllers (both RL and optical control algorithms) across tasks such as altitude regulation and trajectory tracking. Cross-validation with X-Plane and JSBSim is also supported to facilitate engineering integration and visual fidelity.

Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026). Builds on 13 of its 36 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 5 Sep 2026.

Builds on

13 of 36 references.

References · 13

  1. 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithmscited by 15,215
  2. 2018Soft Actor-Critic: Off-Policy Maximum Entropy Deep Reinforcement Learning with a Stochastic Actorcited by 4,885
  3. 2018Addressing Function Approximation Error in Actor-Critic Methodscited by 2,417
  4. 2021Isaac Gym: High Performance GPU-Based Physics Simulation For Robot Learningcited by 998
  5. 2017Sim-to-Real Transfer of Robotic Control with Dynamics Randomizationcited by 672
  6. 2017AirSim: High-Fidelity Visual and Physical Simulation for Autonomous Vehiclescited by 523
  7. 2017Safe Model-based Reinforcement Learning with Stability Guaranteescited by 366
  8. 2018Unity: A General Platform for Intelligent Agentscited by 236
  9. 2017Information Theoretic Model Predictive Control: Theory and Applications to Autonomous Drivingcited by 90
  10. 2020Flightmare: A Flexible Quadrotor Simulatorcited by 84
  11. 2024CaT: Constraints as Terminations for Legged Locomotion Reinforcement Learningcited by 23
  12. 2019Deep Reinforcement Learning Attitude Control of Fixed-Wing UAVs Using Proximal Policy Optimizationcited by 17
1 more
  1. 2021WarpDrive: Extremely Fast End-to-End Deep Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning on a GPUcited by 10

Built on by

Not cited yet.

Similar, not cited

Close in wording, no citation either way

  1. 2025FalconWing: An Ultra-Light Indoor Fixed-Wing UAV Platform for Vision-Based Autonomy
  2. 2026MuJoCo-Drones-Gym: A GPU-Accelerated Multi-Drone Simulator for Control and Reinforcement Learning
  3. 2025Towards Task-Oriented Flying: Framework, Infrastructure, and Principles
  4. 2025Reactive Aerobatic Flight via Reinforcement Learning
  5. 2026AeroManip-VLA: Scalable Vision-Language-Action Learning for Aerial Manipulation with RL-Generated Demonstrations
  6. 2026Wind-Aware Reinforcement Learning Control of a Small Quadrotor Using Learned Onboard Wind Estimation in Simulated Atmospheric Turbulence
  7. 2026UWB Meets Crazyflow: Simulating Degraded Feedback at Scale for Aerial Robotics ↗
  8. 2026Physics-guided surrogate learning enables zero-shot control of turbulent wings