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Drones and swarming

Uncrewed aircraft, and groups of them that fly and act together.

China leads drones and swarming research, with 52.2% of the 10% most cited papers published 2021–2025; the United States is second with 5.0%.

CN
FirstChina52.2%
US
SecondUnited States5.0%
10.4×lead, by share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025

Standings

1CNChina52.2%2USUnited States5.0%3GBUnited Kingdom3.8%4KRSouth Korea3.7%5CACanada2.6%6–7INIndia2.1%6–7SASaudi Arabia2.1%8AUAustralia1.9%9–10HKHong Kong1.8%9–10SGSingapore1.8%

Share of the 10% most cited papers, 2021–2025; 1,445 papers. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Year by year

China

0204060% China 56.0%

Everyone else, on a larger scale

0510% 20212022202320242025 United States 5.4%United Kingdom 2.5%South Korea 2.3%Canada 1.7%India 1.6%

Share of the 10% most cited papers published in each year. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Inside the field

Always the top 10%Pilot

Each paper sorted into one sub-area by an AI model reading its title and abstract, then credited as usual. On 200 hand-labelled papers it chose the same sub-area, or a defensible second, 92% of the time.

Sub-areaPapersFirstSecondThird
Swarms and multi-drone cooperation, formation and task allocation279CNChina63.6%GBUnited Kingdom4.2%USUnited States4.0%
Drone-assisted wireless communications and sensing274CNChina51.3%GBUnited Kingdom6.4%USUnited States4.0%
Drone-enabled edge computing and IoT data collection257CNChina63.3%KRSouth Korea5.3%USUnited States3.5%
Flight control, dynamics and airframe design (quadrotor, VTOL)164CNChina48.9%ETEthiopia5.1%IRIran3.7%
Path planning, obstacle avoidance and exploration (single drone)159CNChina53.4%USUnited States5.9%HKHong Kong4.1%
Security, privacy, identification and safety67CNChina28.2%USUnited States8.4%AEUnited Arab Emirates6.2%
Civil applications (agriculture, search and rescue, disasters)64CNChina28.9%INIndia9.5%USUnited States7.9%
Delivery, routing and logistics (incl. truck-drone)57CNChina33.2%USUnited States16.5%CACanada5.6%
Vision-based navigation and learning-based agile flight39CNChina45.0%USUnited States12.8%CHSwitzerland6.4%

Share of each sub-area's papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Earlier and recent

The same top 10%, split into 2021–2023 and 2024–2025.

FallingRising2021–20232024–2025Change
CNChina 48.1%56.4%+8.3 pts
USUnited States 5.8%4.2%−1.6 pts
GBUnited Kingdom 4.5%3.0%−1.4 pts
KRSouth Korea 4.7%2.6%−2.1 pts
CACanada 2.7%2.6%−0.1 pts
INIndia 2.6%1.7%−0.8 pts
SASaudi Arabia 1.8%2.4%+0.6 pts
AUAustralia 2.5%1.3%−1.3 pts

Share of the 10% most cited papers: 734 papers in 2021–2023, 711 in 2024–2025. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

2026 so far: a different count

Not the most cited papers: every 2026 paper matched so far (3,675), and a paper counts in full for each country on it. This year's papers are too new to rank by citations, so these shares cannot be compared with the ones above.

  1. CNChina63.2%of 2026 papers have an author here
  2. USUnited States5.4%of 2026 papers have an author here
  3. GBUnited Kingdom4.5%of 2026 papers have an author here
  4. INIndia4.5%of 2026 papers have an author here
  5. KRSouth Korea4.4%of 2026 papers have an author here

Who cites the top papers

How much more often a country's top papers are cited from home than its size predicts. Expected is the country's share of all papers in the field; the bar is the excess, in percentage points. Home citers include authors citing their own earlier work.

HomeExpectedExcess
CNChina 72.3%55.0%+17.3
USUnited States 14.3%8.8%+5.5
GBUnited Kingdom 7.7%5.6%+2.1
KRSouth Korea 12.2%5.5%+6.7
CACanada 9.1%4.6%+4.5

Based on up to 100 of each country's most cited single-country papers in the top 10%. Source: OpenAlex, pulled 18 October 2026. Method

Behind the share

Institutions with the most credit

  1. 1CNNanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics3.2%
  2. 2CNNorthwestern Polytechnical University2.9%
  3. 3CNBeihang University2.8%
  4. 4CNUniversity of Electronic Science and Technology of China1.9%
  5. 5CNNational University of Defense Technology1.6%
  6. 6CNSoutheast University1.3%
  7. 7CNDalian University of Technology1.2%
  8. 8CNBeijing University of Posts and Telecommunications1.1%
  9. 9CNBeijing Institute of Technology1.0%
  10. 10SGNanyang Technological University1.0%

Share of the top 10%. Institutions across all 45 technologies

Who does the work

SectorAllCNUSGB
Universities94.2%
94.4%
96.2%
100.0%
Research facilities3.5%
3.7%
0.5%
0%
Government labs1.0%
1.1%
0.7%
0%
Companies0.8%
0.7%
1.4%
0%

Share of credit by type of institution, overall and for the three leading countries.

Across borders

51.1% of the top 10% have authors in more than one country.

  1. CNGBChina with United Kingdom94
  2. CNUSChina with United States93
  3. CNSGChina with Singapore77
  4. CACNCanada with China77
  5. CNHKChina with Hong Kong66

Most frequent pairings, by number of shared papers.

The papers behind the numbers

The five most cited papers this definition catches. If one looks out of place, the definition needs work.

  1. 1,061citations
  2. 915citations
  3. 562citations
  4. What Will the Future of UAV Cellular Communications Be? A Flight From 5G to 6G
    IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials, 2022ESFRLUUS
    533citations
  5. 460citations

More in space, air and defence

The most technologically advanced countries, and is China ahead of the US?

How this technology is defined

A paper counts if its title or abstract matches the search below. Articles in core journals and proceedings only; retracted papers are excluded.

"unmanned aerial vehicle" OR UAV OR quadrotor OR "drone swarm" OR "multi-UAV" OR "unmanned aircraft"

and its main topic in OpenAlex is one of: UAV Applications and Optimization; Adaptive Control of Nonlinear Systems; Distributed Control Multi-Agent Systems; Robotic Path Planning Algorithms; Aerospace and Aviation Technology; Reinforcement Learning in Robotics; Aerospace Engineering and Control Systems; Advanced Wireless Communication Technologies; Air Traffic Management and Optimization; Mobile Ad Hoc Networks; Inertial Sensor and Navigation; Vehicle Routing Optimization Methods. The topic check removes papers that only mention the technology.

Papers matched, 2021–2025
14,463
In the top 10%
1,445
In the top 1%
147
Countries with credit
81
Credit with no known country
1.9%
Every one of the 1,754 most cited papers was checked for relevance; 51 were left out as not about drones and swarming

The most cited of those left out:

  • 6G Internet of Things: A Comprehensive Survey1,452 citations
  • A Primer on Rate-Splitting Multiple Access: Tutorial, Myths, and Frequently Asked Questions412 citations
  • Single and Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning for AI-Enabled Wireless Networks: A Tutorial406 citations
  • A Survey of Path Planning Algorithms for Mobile Robots400 citations
  • Review of Autonomous Path Planning Algorithms for Mobile Robots322 citations
  • A comprehensive survey on the Multiple Traveling Salesman Problem: Applications, approaches and taxonomy289 citations
  • Multi-sensor integrated navigation/positioning systems using data fusion: From analytics-based to learning-based approaches262 citations
  • Applications of Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning in Future Internet: A Comprehensive Survey251 citations
  • General fuzzy adaptive fault-tolerant control based on Nussbaum-type function with additive and multiplicative sensor and state-dependent actuator faults236 citations
  • RIS-Aided Cell-Free Massive MIMO Systems for 6G: Fundamentals, System Design, and Applications222 citations
  • Fully Actuated System Approach for Control: An Overview199 citations
  • NOMA and 5G emerging technologies: A survey on issues and solution techniques178 citations

Definition version 0.5, pilot. It is a plain text file: copy it, change it, rerun it.

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