{"ID":2825890,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.20475","arxiv_id":"2512.20475","title":"Drift-Corrected Monocular VIO and Perception-Aware Planning for Autonomous Drone Racing","abstract":"The Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League(A2RL) x Drone Champions League competition(DCL) requires teams to perform high-speed autonomous drone racing using only a single camera and a low-quality inertial measurement unit -- a minimal sensor set that mirrors expert human drone racing pilots. This sensor limitation makes the system susceptible to drift from Visual-Inertial Odometry (VIO), particularly during long and fast flights with aggressive maneuvers. This paper presents the system developed for the championship, which achieved a competitive performance. Our approach corrected VIO drift by fusing its output with global position measurements derived from a YOLO-based gate detector using a Kalman filter. A perception-aware planner generated trajectories that balance speed with the need to keep gates visible for the perception system. The system demonstrated high performance, securing podium finishes across multiple categories: third place in the AI Grand Challenge with top speed of 43.2 km/h, second place in the AI Drag Race with over 59 km/h, and second place in the AI Multi-Drone Race. We detail the complete architecture and present a performance analysis based on experimental data from the competition, contributing our insights on building a successful system for monocular vision-based autonomous drone flight.","short_abstract":"The Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League(A2RL) x Drone Champions League competition(DCL) requires teams to perform high-speed autonomous drone racing using only a single camera and a low-quality inertial measurement unit -- a minimal sensor set that mirrors expert human drone racing pilots. This sensor limitation makes t...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.20475","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2512.20475v1","authors":"[\"Maulana Bisyir Azhari\",\"Donghun Han\",\"Je In You\",\"Sungjun Park\",\"David Hyunchul Shim\"]","published":"2025-12-23T16:12:10Z","proceeding":"cs.RO","tasks":"[\"cs.RO\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}