Why this index exists
Experimental achievements in aerial robotics are often readily communicated through videos, demonstrations, social media, institutional news, and journal promotion. Theoretical contributions are less immediately visible and may be distributed across robotics, control, applied mathematics, mechanics, optimization, and related research communities.
Theory in Aerial Robotics is an experimental, openly maintained index intended to make these contributions easier to discover. It organizes recent preprints and published works according to their theoretical and mathematical contributions rather than primarily according to application.
The index complements existing repositories and bibliographic services. It does not host papers and does not replace arXiv, publishers, search engines, or scholarly databases.
Aim
The aim is to provide a lightweight and neutral entry point for researchers interested in the theoretical foundations of aerial robotics. The index seeks to:
- improve the discoverability of theoretical contributions;
- connect works using related theoretical ideas across different aerial platforms and applications;
- organize works by theoretical topic and contribution type;
- provide direct links to public preprints and published versions;
- offer structured metadata without ranking papers, authors, groups, or institutions;
- explore whether a broader researcher-governed resource for theoretical robotics would be useful and sustainable.
Scope
A work is within scope when aerial robotics is a substantive context and its primary contribution includes a mathematical result or formal guarantee; a structural characterization; an existence, uniqueness, stability, convergence, feasibility, or optimality analysis; a theoretically grounded modeling framework; a general control, estimation, planning, allocation, or design method; a geometric, topological, variational, or energy-based formulation; an impossibility, limitation, or lower-bound result; or a theoretically meaningful connection between aerial robotics and another scientific field.
The presence or absence of experiments is not an inclusion criterion. A theoretical work may contain simulations, numerical studies, or physical experiments. Conversely, the absence of experiments does not by itself make a work theoretical.
Examples of works within scope
Relevant contributions may concern dynamics and mechanics; aerodynamic and flight modeling; nonlinear and geometric control; optimal and predictive control; robust and adaptive control; learning-based control with identifiable theoretical structure; control allocation and redundant actuation; planning and trajectory generation; estimation, observability, and identification; aerial physical interaction and manipulation; tethered, suspended, and constrained aerial systems; multirobot systems and cooperative transport; or actuation, morphology, and control-oriented design.
Works not included solely on the following grounds
A work is not included merely because it contains equations, uses an optimization algorithm, implements an established controller on a new aerial platform, presents simulations without a substantive theoretical contribution, applies an existing method to a new application, or primarily contributes hardware, a dataset, a benchmark, or an experimental demonstration.
These contributions can be scientifically important. Their exclusion indicates only that their primary contribution falls outside the specific scope of this index.
How the index is organized
Each record is classified by its primary theoretical topic, contribution type, aerial platform, first-public year, publication status, and publication venue when available. A work receives one primary theoretical topic, which does not imply that it belongs exclusively to that topic.
Topics, contribution types, platforms, statuses, and venues use controlled vocabularies maintained publicly with the source code and database.
Selection and maintenance
Candidate works are identified from public sources, initially with emphasis on recent arXiv submissions and publicly available publication information.
Automated tools and artificial intelligence may assist with identifying potentially relevant works, retrieving metadata, proposing classifications, detecting duplicate records, and checking consistency. Every public addition is reviewed by the human maintainer. Artificial intelligence does not autonomously decide which works are included, assess correctness, or rank scientific importance.
The classification represents the maintainer's best interpretation of the publicly available work. Authors may request corrections.
Neutrality
Inclusion means only that a work has been judged relevant to the declared scope. It does not constitute peer review, endorsement, validation of correctness, certification of novelty or importance, a recommendation to cite the work, or a comparison with other works.
The index does not use likes, popularity rankings, sponsored entries, paid promotion, or preferential placement. Entries are chronological and filterable. Works authored by the maintainer or collaborators are subject to the same inclusion criteria and presentation rules as all other works.
Coverage and limitations
The index is a small pilot that started on 4 October 2026. It monitors selected public sources and does not claim complete coverage of theoretical aerial robotics.
Relevant works may be missed because they appear outside monitored sources, aerial robotics is not explicit in their title or abstract, their theoretical contribution is difficult to identify from public metadata, they predate the prospective coverage period, or the maintainer is unaware of them.
The absence of a work should not be interpreted as an assessment of its relevance, quality, or scientific value. Historical works may be added selectively, while the initial effort focuses on prospective coverage of recent contributions.
Corrections and missing works
Authors and readers are invited to report missing works, incorrect metadata or status, duplicate records, questionable classifications, and taxonomy suggestions through the Codeberg issue tracker.
The maintainer retains responsibility for the final classification. Disagreement about classification should be treated as a normal consequence of an evolving taxonomy rather than as a judgment of the work.
Pilot status and future direction
Theory in Aerial Robotics is an experimental pilot. Its scope, taxonomy, and maintenance process may evolve in response to practical experience and community feedback.
The pilot will help determine whether the index is useful, whether systematic coverage is feasible, how much maintenance is required, which categories are necessary, whether a periodic digest would add value, and whether broader researcher governance or expansion to theoretical robotics more generally would be warranted.
Expansion is not assumed. Continuing as a small aerial-robotics index would also be a valid outcome.
Maintainer and contact
The pilot is initiated and maintained by Antonio Franchi. For contact information, see r-franchi.eu.
The source code, controlled vocabularies, and paper database are publicly available on Codeberg.