arXiv AI By Daan van Hamersveld, Ewoud Smeur, Iurii Kriachko

Autonomous fixed-wing interception using reinforcement learning

Read the original on arXiv AI →

The paper presents a fixed‑wing interceptor drone that uses a neural network trained with reinforcement learning to map monocular vision inputs directly to actuator commands. The policy, developed in a custom Python environment with proximal policy optimization, was tested against classical guidance controllers and demonstrated superior performance in simulation and successful interception of maneuvering fixed‑wing targets in real flight. This work illustrates the feasibility of AI‑driven autonomous control for long‑endurance interception missions.

Machine-generated by The Flow from the publisher's headline and feed description — not written or checked by a human. The full article lives at arXiv AI.

arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 27

BVR Sim: An Open and High-Throughput Environment for Heterogeneous Air-Combat Reinforcement Learning

BVR Sim is an open‑source, Gymnasium‑style environment for heterogeneous air‑combat reinforcement learning, supporting multiple JSBSim aircraft models (F‑15, F‑16, F/A‑18, F‑22) with configurable weapons, sensors, and opponents. It offers a unified tactical action interface, interchangeable Python and accelerated C++ backends, entity‑oriented observations, compositional rewards, scripted opponents, replay and visualization, and adapters for multi‑agent learning frameworks. At a 0.4‑second decision interval, the C++ backend achieves 104 simulated seconds per wall‑clock second in 1‑vs‑1 and remains practical through 10‑vs‑10 scenarios, and a policy trained on the F‑16 transfers to four unseen aircraft with a 45.5% mean win rate after controller adaptation.

By Haocheng Sun (Beijing University of Posts,Telecommunications), Mulai Tan (Air Force Engineering University)
arXiv AI
Jul 3

Lightweight Safe Reinforcement Learning for End-to-End UAV Navigation

arXiv:2607. 01794v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: With the rapid development of autonomous aerial systems, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are increasingly deployed in applications such as inspection, environmental monitoring, and rescue, creating growing demand for reliable autonomous navigation.

By Shenghui Zhang, YuXuan Gao, Songwei Zhao, Jifeng Hu, Zijing Zhang, Hechang Chen
arXiv Machine Learning
Aug 17

AgilePE: Autonomous UAV Pursuit-Evasion via Self-Play Reinforcement Learning

arXiv:2608. 14135v1 Announce Type: cross Abstract: Autonomous pursuit-evasion is a fundamental challenge for Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), requiring rapid decision-making under tightly coupled dynamics and continuously changing opponent behaviors.

By Wenhao Tang, Tianyang Chen, Zhejun Cui, Boyuan An, Jiayu Chen, Ruize Zhang, Huidong Liu, Tianyue Wu, Qingmin Liao, Fei Gao, Yu Wang, Chao Yu