Publications

In our recent Nature article, we developed a new theory on how flying drones and insects can estimate gravity direction by combining visual motion sensing with a model of how they move. This discovery forms a parsimonious explanation of multiple phenomena observed in biology and is also an important step for the creation of autonomous tiny drones with even fewer sensors. 

Guido C. H. E. Croon, Julien J. G. Dupeyroux, Christophe De Wagter, Abhishek Chatterjee, Diana A. Olejnik, Franck Ruffier: Accommodating unobservability to control flight attitude with optic flow. In: Nature, vol. 610, no. 7932, pp. 485–490, 2022, ISSN: 0028-0836.
 

Nature Machine Intelligence Paper

Whereas insects seem to control their flight effortlessly with the help of optical flow, robots that attempt to do the same run into problems. We propose as a solution a learning process that allows robots to see distances by means of visual appearance (colors, textures, shapes). Would it be possible that insects do the same?

The article is featured on the cover of Nature Machine Intelligence. Cover reprinted by permission from Springer Nature.

G.C.H.E. de Croon, C. De Wagter, T. Seidl: Enhancing optical-flow-based control by learning visual appearance cues for flying robots. In: Nature Machine Intelligence, vol. 3, no. 1, 2021.

Science Robotics Paper

Our recent paper in Science Robotics presents the first swarm of tiny robots that can explore unknown environments completely by themselves. No map, no memory, and no GPS! The full paper can be found here.

K N McGuire, C De Wagter, K Tuyls, H J Kappen, G C H E de Croon: Minimal navigation solution for a swarm of tiny flying robots to explore an unknown environment. In: Science Robotics, vol. 4, no. 35, 2019.

 

Delfly Book

 

 

Our book about the DelFly has been published! The book introduces the topics most relevant to autonomously flying flapping-wing robots: flapping-wing design, aerodynamics, and artificial intelligence.

 

G C H E de Croon, Mustafa Percin, B D W Remes, Rick Ruijsink, C De Wagter: The DelFly - Design, Aerodynamics, and Artificial Intelligence of a Flapping Wing Robot. Springer Netherlands, 2016, ISBN: 978-94-017-9207-3.

 

Science paper

 

 

The Delfly Nimble was featured on the cover of Science Magazine in September 2018.

 

Matěj Karásek, Florian T Muijres, Christophe De Wagter, Bart D W Remes, Guido C H E de Croon: A tailless aerial robotic flapper reveals that flies use torque coupling in rapid banked turns. In: Science, vol. 361, no. 6407, pp. 1089–1094, 2018, ISSN: 0036-8075.

 

 

 

 

 

All publications

790 entries « 1 of 16 »

2025

Journal Articles

Anton Bredenbeck; Cosimo Della Santina; Salua Hamaza

Embodying Compliant Touch on Drones for Aerial Tactile Navigation (Journal Article)

In: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 1209–1216, 2025, ISSN: 2377-3766, (Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.).

(Links | BibTeX)

Yingfu Xu; Guido C. H. E. Croon

CUAHN-VIO: Content-and-uncertainty-aware homography network for visual-inertial odometry (Journal Article)

In: Robotics and Autonomous Systems, vol. 185, 2025, ISSN: 0921-8890.

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Till M. Blaha; Mike M. Kuijper; Radu Pop; Ewoud J. J. Smeur

Rapid and Inexpensive Inertia Tensor Estimation From a Single Object Throw (Journal Article)

In: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 10, no. 7, pp. 7365–7371, 2025, ISSN: 2377-3766.

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Saeed Rafee Nekoo; Ramy Rashad; Christophe De Wagter; Sawyer B. Fuller; Guido de Croon; Stefano Stramigioli; Anibal Ollero

A review on flapping-wing robots: Recent progress and challenges (Journal Article)

In: International Journal of Robotics Research, 2025, ISSN: 0278-3649.

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Stephen Pringle; Martin Dallimer; Mark A. Goddard; Léni K. Le Goff; Emma Hart; Simon J. Langdale; Jessica C. Fisher; Sara Adela Abad; Salua Hamaza; More Authors

Opportunities and challenges for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity in the robotics age (Journal Article)

In: Nature Ecology and Evolution, vol. 9, no. 6, pp. 1031–1042, 2025, ISSN: 2397-334X.

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Tomaso Maria Luigi De Ponti; Ewoud Jan Jacob Smeur; Bart Diane Walter Remes

Unified-Actuator Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion Controller for the Variable Skew Quad Plane (Journal Article)

In: Journal of Guidance, Control, and Dynamics, vol. 48, no. 5, pp. 1167–1176, 2025, ISSN: 0731-5090, (Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.).

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S. T. Hazelaar; C. Wang; C. Wagter; Florian T. Muijres; G. C. H. E. Croon; M. Yedutenko

Bioinspired adaptive visual servoing control for quadrotors (Journal Article)

In: Bioinspiration & Biomimetics: learning from nature, vol. 20, no. 3, 2025, ISSN: 1748-3182.

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Ziqing Ma; Ewoud J. J. Smeur; Guido C. H. E. De Croon

Design and Control of A Tilt-Rotor Tailsitter Aircraft with Pivoting VTOL Capability (Journal Article)

In: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 10, no. 6, pp. 5911 – 5918, 2025, ISSN: 2377-3766, (Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.).

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Yingfu Xu; Guangzhi Tang; Amirreza Yousefzadeh; Guido C. H. E. Croon; Manolis Sifalakis

Event-based optical flow on neuromorphic processor: ANN vs. SNN comparison based on activation sparsification (Journal Article)

In: Neural Networks, vol. 188, 2025, ISSN: 0893-6080, (Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository 'You share, we take care!' - Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.).

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S. Stroobants; C. De Wagter; G. C. H. E. De Croon

Neuromorphic Attitude Estimation and Control (Journal Article)

In: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 10, no. 5, 2025, ISSN: 2377-3766, (Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.).

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Jason Yik; Korneel Van den Berghe; Douwe Blanken; Younes Bouhadjar; Maxime Fabre; Aurora Micheli; Guido Croon; Nergis Tömen; Charlotte Frenkel; More Authors

The neurobench framework for benchmarking neuromorphic computing algorithms and systems (Journal Article)

In: Nature Communications, vol. 16, no. 1, 2025, ISSN: 2041-1723.

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Hang Yu; Christophe De Wagter; Guido C. H. E. De Croon

MAVRL: Learn to Fly in Cluttered Environments With Varying Speed (Journal Article)

In: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 10, no. 2, pp. 1441–1448, 2025, ISSN: 2377-3766, (Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.).

(Links | BibTeX)

Shushuai Li; Feng Shan; Jiangpeng Liu; Mario Coppola; Christophe De Wagter; Guido C. H. E. De Croon

Onboard Ranging-based Relative Localization and Stability for Lightweight Aerial Swarms (Journal Article)

In: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 10, no. 10, pp. 10066–10073, 2025, ISSN: 2377-3766, (Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository as part of the Taverne amendment. More information about this copyright law amendment can be found at https://www.openaccess.nl. Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.).

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Anique Altena; Mirjam Snellen; Salil Luesutthiviboon; Guido Croon; Mark Voskuijl

Frequency band analysis and comparison of localisation techniques for drones using microphone array measurements (Journal Article)

In: JASA Express Letters, vol. 5, no. 2, 2025, ISSN: 2691-1191.

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Borrdephong Rattanagraikanakorn; H. A. P. Blom; Derek I. Gransden; M. J. Schuurman; C. Wagter; Alexei Sharpanskykh; R. Happee

Effect of Design on Human Injury and Fatality Due to Impacts by Small UAS (Journal Article)

In: Designs, vol. 9, no. 4, 2025, ISSN: 2411-9660.

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Proceedings Articles

Jane Pauline Ramirez; Rafael Dux; Salua Hamaza

Continuum Twisted Tower Origami Landing Gear for Drones: Design, Modelling and Experiments (Proceedings Article)

In: 2025 IEEE 8th International Conference on Soft Robotics, RoboSoft 2025, IEEE, United States, 2025, (8th IEEE International Conference on Soft Robotics, RoboSoft 2025 ; Conference date: 22-04-2025 Through 26-04-2025).

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N. Wechtler; A. Mancinelli; E. J. J. Smeur

Implications of Propeller-Wing Interactions on the Control of Aerodynamic-Surface-Free Tilt-Rotor Quad-Planes (Proceedings Article)

In: Proceedings of the AIAA SCITECH 2025 Forum, 2025, (AIAA SCITECH 2025 Forum ; Conference date: 06-01-2025 Through 10-01-2025).

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A. Mancinelli; N. Voß; E. J. J. Smeur

Fault Tolerant Control in Over-Actuated Hybrid Tilt-Rotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Proceedings Article)

In: AIAA Science and Technology Forum and Exposition, AIAA SciTech Forum 2025, American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Inc. (AIAA), United States, 2025, (AIAA SCITECH 2025 Forum ; Conference date: 06-01-2025 Through 10-01-2025).

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M. Homola; Y. Li; E. Kampen

Uncertainty-Driven Distributional Reinforcement Learning for Flight Control (Proceedings Article)

In: Proceedings of the AIAA SCITECH 2025 Forum, 2025, (AIAA SCITECH 2025 Forum ; Conference date: 06-01-2025 Through 10-01-2025).

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F. Larocque; T. M. L. De Ponti; B. D. W. Remes; E. J. J. Smeur

Synthetic Air Data System for Pitot Tube Failure Detection on the Variable Skew Quad Plane (Proceedings Article)

In: Proceedings of the AIAA SCITECH 2025 Forum, 2025, (AIAA SCITECH 2025 Forum ; Conference date: 06-01-2025 Through 10-01-2025).

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Miscellaneous

Youssef Farah; Federico Paredes-Vallés; Guido De Croon; Muhammad Ahmed Humais; Hussain Sajwani; Yahya Zweiri

EV-LayerSegNet: Self-supervised Motion Segmentation using Event Cameras (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Hang Yu; Christophe De Wagter; Guido C. H. E Croon

Depth Transfer: Learning to See Like a Simulator for Real-World Drone Navigation (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Stavrow A. Bahnam; Christophe De Wagter; Guido C. H. E. Croon

Self-Supervised Monocular Visual Drone Model Identification through Improved Occlusion Handling (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Robin Ferede; Till Blaha; Erin Lucassen; Christophe De Wagter; Guido C. H. E. Croon

One Net to Rule Them All: Domain Randomization in Quadcopter Racing Across Different Platforms (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Elijah H. W. Ang; Christophe De Wagter; Guido C. H. E. Croon

Multi-objective Evolution of Drone Morphology (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Till M. Blaha; Mike M. Kuijper; Radu Pop; Ewoud J. J. Smeur

Rapid and Inexpensive Inertia Tensor Estimation from a Single Object Throw (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Utkarsh Bajpai; Julius Rückin; Cyrill Stachniss; Marija Popović

Uncertainty-Informed Active Perception for Open Vocabulary Object Goal Navigation (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Xingguang Zhong; Yue Pan; Liren Jin; Marija Popović; Jens Behley; Cyrill Stachniss

Globally Consistent RGB-D SLAM with 2D Gaussian Splatting (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Sicong Pan; Liren Jin; Xuying Huang; Cyrill Stachniss; Marija Popović; Maren Bennewitz

DM-OSVP++: One-Shot View Planning Using 3D Diffusion Models for Active RGB-Based Object Reconstruction (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Rajitha Silva; Jonathan Cox; Marija Popovic; Cesar Cadena; Cyrill Stachniss; Riccardo Polvara

Keypoint Semantic Integration for Improved Feature Matching in Outdoor Agricultural Environments (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Jacob Swindell; Madeleine Darbyshire; Marija Popovic; Riccardo Polvara

Discrete Gaussian Process Representations for Optimising UAV-based Precision Weed Mapping (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Yue Pan; Xingguang Zhong; Liren Jin; Louis Wiesmann; Marija Popović; Jens Behley; Cyrill Stachniss

PINGS: Gaussian Splatting Meets Distance Fields within a Point-Based Implicit Neural Map (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Jesse J. Hagenaars; Stein Stroobants; Sander M. Bohte; Guido C. H. E. De Croon

All Eyes, no IMU: Learning Flight Attitude from Vision Alone (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Evangelos Ntouros; Pavel Kelley; Ewoud Smeur

Airspeed estimation for UAVs using only propeller feedback (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Rajitha Silva; Jonathan Cox; James R. Heselden; Marija Popovic; Cesar Cadena; Riccardo Polvara

Semantic-Aware Particle Filter for Reliable Vineyard Robot Localisation (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Sanjeev Ramkumar Sudha; Marija Popović; Erlend M. Coates

An Informative Planning Framework for Target Tracking and Active Mapping in Dynamic Environments with ASVs (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Jose Luis Galan Argumedo; Ton Riemslag; Marcel Hermans; Vera Popovich

Dataset to the publication Fracture behaviour of functionally graded bi-material interface produced by wire arc additive manufacturing (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Jose Luis Galan Argumedo; Aswin Suresh; Zhaoying Ding; Virginia Morete Barbosa Bertolo; Elise Reinton; Ton Riemslag; Marcel Hermans; Vera Popovich

Dataset to the publication Fatigue crack propagation in functionally graded bi-material steel obtained through wire-arc additive manufacturing (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Alessandro Mancinelli; Ewoud Smeur; Bart Remes; Guido De Croon

Data underlying Ch. 2 to 7 of the PhD thesis: Hybrid lift UAV design and control for precision landing on a moving vessel in high sea state (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Tomaso De Ponti; Simon Franz Hafner; Ewoud Smeur

Test Data on the Equivalence of Sensory and Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Jose Luis Galan Argumedo; Mahdi Mahmoudiniya; Elise Reinton; Leo Kestens; Marcel Hermans; Vera Popovich

Dataset to the publication Functional grading of low alloy steel to 316 L by wire arc additive manufacturing – Microstructural and mechanical characterization of bi-metal interface (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Stein Stroobants; Guido De Croon; Christophe De Wagter

Data underlying the publication: Neuromorphic Attitude Estimation and Control (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Tomaso De Ponti; Simon Hafner; Ewoud Smeur

Test Data of Actuator-Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion for Systems with Heterogeneous Actuator Dynamics: A Superior Alternative to Incremental Nonlinear Dynamic Inversion (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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Ziqing Ma; Ewoud Smeur

Wind tunnel test dataset of a tilt-rotor tailsitter focusing on wing-propeller interaction (Miscellaneous)

2025.

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PhD Theses

A. Mancinelli

Hybrid lift UAV design and control for precision landing on a moving vessel in high sea state (PhD Thesis)

2025, ISBN: 978-94-6518-112-7.

(Links | BibTeX)

2024

Journal Articles

Tom van Dijk; Christophe De Wagter; Guido C.H.E. de Croon

Visual Route-following for Tiny Autonomous Robots (Journal Article)

In: Science Robotics, vol. 9, no. 92, pp. eadk0310, 2024, ISSN: 2470-9476.

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Dario Izzo; Emmanuel Blazquez; Robin Ferede; Sebastien Origer; Christophe De Wagter; Guido C. H. E. de Croon

Optimality principles in spacecraft neural guidance and control (Journal Article)

In: Science Robotics, vol. 9, iss. 91, no. 91, pp. eadi6421, 2024, ISSN: 2470-9476.

(Abstract | Links | BibTeX)

Liming Zheng; Salua Hamaza

ALBERO: Agile Landing on Branches for Environmental Robotics Operations (Journal Article)

In: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 2845–2852, 2024, ISSN: 2377-3766, (Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.).

(Links | BibTeX)

F. Paredes-Vallés; J. J. Hagenaars; J. Dupeyroux; S. Stroobants; Y. Xu; G. C. H. E. Croon

Fully neuromorphic vision and control for autonomous drone flight (Journal Article)

In: Science Robotics, vol. 9, no. 90, pp. eadi0591, 2024.

(Abstract | Links | BibTeX)

Hann Woei Ho; Ye Zhou; Yiting Feng; Guido C. H. E. Croon

Optical flow-based control for micro air vehicles: an efficient data-driven incremental nonlinear dynamic inversion approach (Journal Article)

In: Autonomous Robots, vol. 48, no. 8, 2024, ISSN: 0929-5593, (Green Open Access added to TU Delft Institutional Repository ‘You share, we take care!’ – Taverne project https://www.openaccess.nl/en/you-share-we-take-care Otherwise as indicated in the copyright section: the publisher is the copyright holder of this work and the author uses the Dutch legislation to make this work public.).

(Links | BibTeX)

790 entries « 1 of 16 »