aiqbench analysis
This research advances safe autonomous flight by integrating anticipatory collision risk prediction directly into reinforcement learning policies for quadrotors operating in dynamic environments. By leveraging a directionally aligned future risk map derived from depth sequences, the method eliminates reliance on explicit object tracking while achieving robust zero-shot transfer to physical hardware. The approach addresses critical latency issues inherent in conventional modular pipelines through an asymmetric actor-critic architecture that explicitly guides visual decision-making with physics-grounded supervision.
Anticipatory Risk-Guided Reinforcement Learning for Safe Flight Through Dynamic Clutter
arXiv:2607.23565v1 Announce Type: new Abstract: Safe quadrotor navigation in cluttered and dynamic environments depends not only on instantaneous geometric perception, but more critically on anticipating collision risks induced by relative motion. Conventional modular pipelines frequently suffer from perception latency, while end-to-end learning methods relying on implicit scalar rewards often struggle to extract reliable spatio-temporal features without physics-grounded supervision. To address this, we propose an anticipatory risk-guided reinforcement learning framework. Leveraging privileged simulator states, we construct a directionally aligned future collision risk map based on the Closest Point of Approach (CPA). Through an asymmetric actor-critic architecture, the network is trained to self-predict this structured risk, which explicitly guides the visual policy during deployment. A lightweight spatio-temporal encoder extracts motion cues directly from onboard depth sequences, bypassing explicit object tracking or optical flow estimation. Extensive simulated and real-world experiments demonstrate that our method effectively improves safety margins and flight efficiency in dense dynamic clutters compared to existing baselines. Furthermore, the learned policy achieves robust zero-shot Sim-to-Real transfer on a physical quadrotor, relying purely on abstracted spatio-temporal depth sequences and its self-predicted risk priors, validating the effectiveness of our approach and its robust generalization from simulation to reality.
Abstract:Safe quadrotor navigation in cluttered and dynamic environments depends not only on instantaneous geometric perception, but more critically on anticipating collision risks induced by relative motion. Conventional modular pipelines frequently suffer from perception latency, while end-to-end learning methods relying on implicit scalar rewards often struggle to extract reliable spatio-temporal features without physics-grounded supervision. To address this, we propose an anticipatory risk-guided reinforcement learning framework. Leveraging privileged simulator states, we construct a directionally aligned future collision risk map based on the Closest Point of Approach (CPA). Through an asymmetric actor-critic architecture, the network is trained to self-predict this structured risk, which explicitly guides the visual policy during deployment. A lightweight spatio-temporal encoder extracts motion cues directly from onboard depth sequences, bypassing explicit object tracking or optical flow estimation. Extensive simulated and real-world experiments demonstrate that our method effectively improves safety margins and flight efficiency in dense dynamic clutters compared to existing baselines. Furthermore, the learned policy achieves robust zero-shot Sim-to-Real transfer on a physical quadrotor, relying purely on abstracted spatio-temporal depth sequences and its self-predicted risk priors, validating the effectiveness of our approach and its robust generalization from simulation to reality.
8 pages, 7 figures. Accepted to the 2026 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS 2026)
Robotics (cs.RO); Machine Learning (cs.LG)
arXiv:2607.23565 [cs.RO]
(or arXiv:2607.23565v1 [cs.RO] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2607.23565 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
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Full text under the publisher's open licence · 304 words
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