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This paper provides a comprehensive overview of the foundational concepts and methodologies of reinforcement learning and taxonomizes its applications in UAV decision-making into three primary categories: fundamental tasks encompassing obstacle avoidance and path planning, advanced tasks involving cooperative control, and complex tasks requiring adversarial decision-making. Additionally, the challenges associated with implementing reinforcement learning in UAV applications are critically examined. In the final section, we envision future research directions and provide a comprehensive summary of the study. 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