From Local Whole-Body VLA Behaviors to Scene-Scale Aerial Manipulation
On the map: Vision-language-action models → Aerial and drone VLA
Abstract (arXiv)
Vision-language-action (VLA) models enable task-conditioned interaction, but extending them to scene-scale aerial manipulation remains challenging due to costly whole-body demonstrations, latency-induced action-state misalignment, and cross-site behavior composition. We present a unified framework for synthetic policy training and scene-scale execution on articulated uncrewed aerial manipulators (UAMs). A scene-reconfigurable pipeline synthesizes task-conditioned, kinodynamically feasible trajectories and synchronized multiview observations for VLA training without physical-platform demonstrations. Measured-progress-aligned realization (MPAR) aligns asynchronously returned action chunks with measured execution progress and realizes them as continuous, dynamically feasible trajectories. A relational Scene Graph grounds language goals to object instances and feasible interaction regions, while topology-guided transfer connects local behaviors across sites. Local VLA skills achieve 39/60 successes (65.0%) in simulation under oracle target and feasible-handoff conditions. Under 500-ms added latency, with and without a transient command-update stall, MPAR reduces median takeover phase error by 0.212 s over nominal-time alignment. The complete system completes 21/50 simulated multi-site missions (42.0%) and is further validated on a physical articulated UAM.
Key facts. No citing papers in the map yet (data through 7 Oct 2026). Placed in Aerial and drone VLA, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models. Builds on 24 of its 26 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 30 Sep 2026.
Builds on
24 of 26 references.
Closest ancestors · 2
Same direction, newest first
- 2026π, But Make It Fly: Physics-Guided Transfer of VLA Models to Aerial Manipulation26 Mar
- 2026AIR-VLA: Vision-Language-Action Systems for Aerial Manipulation29 Jan
Other references · 22
- 2023RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Controlcited by 2,993
- 2024OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Modelcited by 2,777
- 2025π0.5: a Vision-Language-Action Model with Open-World Generalizationcited by 1,653
- 2023ConceptGraphs: Open-Vocabulary 3D Scene Graphs for Perception and Planningcited by 357
- 2023SayPlan: Grounding Large Language Models using 3D Scene Graphs for Scalable Robot Task Planningcited by 289
- 2025Real-Time Execution of Action Chunking Flow Policiescited by 199
- 2024Hierarchical Open-Vocabulary 3D Scene Graphs for Language-Grounded Robot Navigationcited by 195
- 2024Dynamic Open-Vocabulary 3D Scene Graphs for Long-term Language-Guided Mobile Manipulationcited by 38
- 2024GS-Planner: A Gaussian-Splatting-based Planning Framework for Active High-Fidelity Reconstructioncited by 30
- 2026Real-Time Robot Execution with Masked Action Chunkingcited by 16
- 2021Geometrically Constrained Trajectory Optimization for Multicopterscited by 15
- 2026AutoFly: Vision-Language-Action Model for UAV Autonomous Navigation in the Wildcited by 15
10 more
- 2025UMI-on-Air: Embodiment-Aware Guidance for Embodiment-Agnostic Visuomotor Policiescited by 9
- 2026FutureRTC: Real-Time Robot Execution with Anticipatory-Conditioned Action Chunkingcited by 8
- 2025Flying Hand: End-Effector-Centric Framework for Versatile Aerial Manipulation Teleoperation and Policy Learningcited by 6
- 2025Whole-Body Integrated Motion Planning for Aerial Manipulatorscited by 2
- 2026USS-Nav: Unified Spatio-Semantic Scene Graph for Lightweight UAV Zero-Shot Object Navigationcited by 2
- 2025FLOAT Drone: A Fully-actuated Coaxial Aerial Robot for Close-Proximity Operationscited by 1
- 2026From Sketch Prior to Trajectories: A Mission-Oriented Coordinated Navigation Framework for Indoor UAV Swarmcited by 1
- 2026Effector-Centric NMPC of Tiltable-Multirotors for Offset-Free Omnidirectional Aerial Manipulationcited by 1
- 2026DuctAM: A Duct-Assisted Quadrotor-Based Aerial Manipulator Enabling High-Force Push-and-Pull Interactionscited by 1
- 2026QuadHand: A Compact Quadrotor Aerial Manipulator with MRC-SDF-Based Whole-Body Motion Planningcited by 1
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- 2026AeroManip-VLA: Scalable Vision-Language-Action Learning for Aerial Manipulation with RL-Generated Demonstrations
- 2026Vision Language Action (VLA) Models for Unmanned Aerial Robotics and Bimanual Manipulation: A Review
- 2025AERMANI-VLM: Structured Prompting and Reasoning for Aerial Manipulation with Vision Language Models
- 2026AIR-VLA+: Decoupling Movement and Manipulation via Cascaded Dual-Action Decoders with Asymmetric MoE for Aerial Robots
- 2025Large VLM-based Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Survey
- 2025Towards Deploying VLA without Fine-Tuning: Plug-and-Play Inference-Time VLA Policy Steering via Embodied Evolutionary Diffusion
- 2026GloVLA: Let Geometry Move and Local VLA Interact for Robust Object-Centric Manipulation in Unstructured Environments
- 2026PhysVLA: Towards Physically-Grounded VLA for Embodied Robotic Manipulation