Factor Graph Optimization

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Overview

Factor graph optimization represents unknown poses, biases, landmarks, or object states as variables linked by measurements and priors, turning estimation into sparse nonlinear inference. Common approaches include Gauss–Newton and Levenberg–Marquardt solvers, incremental smoothing with fixed-lag windows, robust M-estimation, and belief propagation; newer work adds learned weighting, distributed optimization, and semidefinite relaxations that can certify global solutions. It underpins SLAM, visual and inertial navigation, mapping, and robot state estimation, and is commonly evaluated on pose-graph, bundle-adjustment, and sensor-fusion benchmarks as well as with field robots. A central challenge is balancing accuracy and robustness to outliers with runtime and memory, while global guarantees and calibrated uncertainty remain difficult to scale beyond local optimization.

Latest papers

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31 papers4 papers in the last four weeks, up 33% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. LAG-IO: Multi-IMU State Estimation for Legged Robots Using Factor Graphs

    Oct 13, 2026Yicheng Zhou, Longwen Chen, Qinghua Yu +3Robot State EstimationInertial Odometry

  2. GLIO2: A GPU-Parallelized Tightly-Coupled LiDAR-Inertial-GNSS System for Robust and Real-Time Global Localization and Mapping

    Oct 8, 2026Qi Zhang, Xikun Liu, Qijun Qin +5Simultaneous Localization and MappingLiDAR Localization

    Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China

  3. F2^2 SLAM: Turning Feed-Forward Geometry into Persistent Factors for SLAM

    Oct 4, 2026Zhisong Xu, Fan Zhu, Jiawei Qian +3Simultaneous Localization and MappingFactor Graph Optimization

    The University of Tokyo · Tohoku University · University of Science and Technology of China +1

  4. Hierarchy-GBP: Accelerating Factor Graph Inference via Abstraction and Recovery

    Oct 4, 2026Yuzhou Cheng, Tom Yates, Ignacio Alzugaray +3Gaussian Belief PropagationBelief Propagation

    Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom.

  5. Bayesian Continuum Robot Dynamics and State Estimation

    Sep 17, 2026James M. Ferguson, Tucker Hermans, Alan KuntzFactor Graph OptimizationRobotics

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Department of Computer Science, Vanderbilt University, TN, USA. · Kahlert School of Computing and Robotics Center, University of Utah, UT, USA.

  6. Multi-Session Multimodal Underwater Mapping with Acoustic and Optical Imaging

    Sep 15, 2026Precious Philip-Ifabiyi, Valerio Franchi, Fausto Ferreira +1Factor Graph OptimizationCross-Modal Image Registration

    Computer Vision and Robotics Research Institute (ViCOROB), University of Girona, Campus Montilivi, Edifici P4, Girona, 17003, Catalonia, Spain · University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Zagreb, Croatia · University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, Laboratory for Underwater Systems and Technologies (LABUST), Zagreb, Croatia +1

  7. Differentiable Mesh State Estimation via Factor Graph Inference for Deformable Object Reconstruction

    Sep 15, 2026Lidia Al-Zogbi, Fangjie Li, Samuel Tobin +13Factor Graph OptimizationDeformable Shape Reconstruction

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155, USA

  8. Contact-Aided Factor-Graph Localization for Underwater Sampling

    Aug 27, 2026Michele Grimaldi, Yosaku Maeda, Hitoshi Kakami +3Robot LocalizationAutonomous Underwater Navigation

    School of Engineering & Physical Sciences, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. · Engineering Department, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Yokosuka, Japan.

  9. Beyond Binary: Continuous State Optimization with Graph-Structured Objectives

    Aug 10, 2026Corinna Cortes, Yishay Mansour, Mehryar MohriFactor Graph OptimizationMulti-Armed Bandits

    Google Research · Tel Aviv University · Courant Institute

  10. Accelerated Random-Sweep Gibbs Sampling for Gaussian Graphical Models via Dual Normal Factor Graphs

    Jul 30, 2026Borna Khodabandeh, Mehdi MolkaraieFactor Graph OptimizationMarkov Chain Monte Carlo

    Department of Statistics, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3LB, UK · Department of Signal Theory and Communications, UPC, 08034 Barcelona, Spain · Department of Statistical Sciences, University of Toronto, ON M5G 1X6, Canada

  11. Learning Adaptive Solvers for Distributed Factor Graph Optimization on Matrix Lie Groups

    Jul 9, 2026Jaeho Shin, Maani Ghaffari, Yulun TianFactor Graph OptimizationRiemannian Optimization

    University of Michigan

  12. J-LAW: Joint Localization and Action-Conditioned World Modeling via Coupled Latent Factor Graphs

    Jun 27, 2026Guanqun Cao, Liang ChenSimultaneous Localization and MappingFactor Graph Optimization

    Geely Technology Europe, Pumpgatan 1, 417 55 Gothenburg Sweden · State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing (LIESMARS), Wuhan University, China

  13. A Smart-Scheduled Hybrid (SSH) EKF-FGO State Estimation

    Jun 14, 2026Eric Levy, Soosan BeheshtiFactor Graph OptimizationRobot State Estimation

    Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering Toronto Metropolitan University Toronto, ON, Canada

  14. Equivariant Neural Belief Propagation

    Jun 4, 2026Zehua Cheng, Wei Dai, Jiahao SunEquivariant Representation LearningFactor Graph Optimization

    Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom · FLock.io, London, United Kingdom

  15. Exploiting Chordal Sparsity for Globally Optimal Estimation with Factor Graphs

    May 28, 2026Avinash Subramanian, Connor Holmes, Timothy D. Barfoot +2Semidefinite ProgrammingFactor Graph Optimization

    College of Computing, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA · Robotics Institute, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada · Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

  16. Composing Non-Conjugate Factor Graphs with Closed-Form Variational Inference

    May 28, 2026Mykola Lukashchuk, Kyrylo Yemets, Wouter M. Kouw +4Factor Graph OptimizationMixture-of-Experts Inference

    Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands · Lviv Polytechnic National University, Lviv, Ukraine · Lazy Dynamics, Utrecht, the Netherlands +1

  17. Loosely Coupled Factor Graph Optimization for Pseudolite-Augmented Navigation

    May 24, 2026Chih-Chun Chen, Lipeng Tan, Shiyu Bai +1Factor Graph OptimizationGNSS-Denied Localization

  18. Enhancing Graph-Based SLAM in GNSS-Denied environments by leveraging leg odometry

    May 19, 2026Léon Perruchot-Triboulet, Luc Jaulin, Kai XiaoSimultaneous Localization and MappingFactor Graph Optimization

    Lab-STICC, ENSTA Campus Brest, France · LinXai Tech. Co., China

  19. DynoJEPP: Joint Estimation, Prediction and Planning in Dynamic Environments

    May 13, 2026Mikolaj Kliniewski, Jesse Morris, Yiduo Wang +2Factor Graph OptimizationSafe Robot Navigation

    Australian Centre For Robotics (ACFR), School of Aerospace, Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering (AMME), University of Sydney, 2006 Sydney, Australia.

  20. CredibleDFGO: Differentiable Factor Graph Optimization with Credibility Supervision

    May 7, 2026Liang Qian, Penggao Yan, Penghui Xu +1Factor Graph OptimizationWireless Localization

    Department of Aeronautical and Aviation Engineering The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China

  21. Temporally Consistent Object 6D Pose Estimation for Robot Control

    May 4, 2026Kateryna Zorina, Vojtech Priban, Mederic Fourmy +2Factor Graph OptimizationObject Pose Estimation

    Czech Institute of Informatics, Robotics and Cybernetics, Czech Technical University in Prague

  22. SNGR: Selective Non-Gaussian Refinement for Ambiguous SLAM Factor Graphs

    Apr 23, 2026Anushka Kulkarni, Sarthak DubeySimultaneous Localization and MappingFactor Graph Optimization

    Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA

  23. Factor Graph-Based Continuum Robot State Estimation with Magnus Expansion Priors

    Apr 17, 2026Lorenzo Ticozzi, Sabyasachi Dash, Yangkun Liu +2Factor Graph OptimizationRobotics

    School of Aerospace Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA · School of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

  24. Implementing Robust M-Estimators with Certifiable Factor Graph Optimization

    Mar 21, 2026Zhexin Xu, Hanna Jiamei Zhang, Helena Calatrava +2Robust EstimationFactor Graph Optimization

    Institute for Experiential Robotics, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA.

  25. LoCal-RIO: Radar-Inertial Odometry with Loop-Closure IMU Bias Calibration

    Mar 14, 2026Ali Alridha Abdulkarim, Mikhail Litvinov, Zein Alabdeen Abdulkarim +1Simultaneous Localization and MappingFactor Graph Optimization

    Intelligent Space Robotics Laboratory, Center for Digital Engineering, Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology.

  26. Real-time tightly coupled GNSS and IMU integration via Factor Graph Optimization

    Mar 3, 2026Radu-Andrei Cioaca, Paul Irofti, Cristian Rusu +3Factor Graph OptimizationRobot State Estimation

    University Politehnica of Bucharest, Romania · Three Tensors S.R.L., Romania · University of Bucharest, Romania +2

  27. Real-time loosely coupled GNSS and IMU integration via Factor Graph Optimization

    Mar 3, 2026Radu-Andrei Cioaca, Cristian Rusu, Paul Irofti +3Factor Graph OptimizationMultimodal Sensor Fusion

    Three Tensors S.R.L., Romania · Navigation Systems Definition Section (TEC-SEN), European Space Agency · Romanian InSpace Engineering S.R.L. (RISE), Romania

  28. Robust Tightly-Coupled Filter-Based Monocular Visual-Inertial State Estimation and Graph-Based Evaluation for Autonomous Drone Racing

    Mar 3, 2026Maulana Bisyir Azhari, Donghun Han, Sung Jun Park +1Autonomous Drone RacingError-State Kalman Filtering

    Unmanned Systems Research Group (USRG), School of Electrical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon 34141, South Korea.

  29. Certifiable Factor Graph Optimization

    Mar 1, 2026Zhexin Xu, Nikolas R. Sanderson, Hanna Jiamei Zhang +1Factor Graph Optimization

    Robust Autonomy Lab, Institute for Experiential Robotics, Northeastern University, 360 Huntington Ave, Boston, MA 02115, USA.

  30. Bluetooth Phased-array Aided Inertial Navigation Using Factor Graphs: Experimental Verification

    Feb 19, 2026Glen Hjelmerud Mørkbak Sørensen, Torleiv H. Bryne, Kristoffer Gryte +1GNSS-Denied LocalizationInertial Navigation

    Department of Engineering Cybernetics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway