Multi-Robot Exploration

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Overview

Multi-robot exploration studies how teams of robots can map unknown spaces, locate targets, or monitor changing environments while avoiding duplicated effort. Common approaches assign frontiers or viewpoints using information gain, then plan routes with methods such as graph search, market-based allocation, submodular optimization, or reinforcement learning. Teams may share maps and plans centrally or coordinate through local communication, observed teammate motion, or compact semantic messages, including when robots have different capabilities. A central challenge is balancing coverage and information quality against communication limits, energy, collision risk, and failures, while ensuring methods transfer from simulation to real robots.

Latest papers

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56 papers10 papers in the last four weeks, up 43% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. SKiD-SLAM: Resource-Aware Distributed Multi-Robot LiDAR SLAM for Planetary Missions with Field Deployments at Analog Sites

    Oct 28, 2026Hogyun Kim, Juwon Kim, Dongjin Cho +7Simultaneous Localization and MappingMulti-Robot Exploration

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Inha University, Incheon 22212, Republic of Korea · Laboratory for Information & Decision Systems (LIDS), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

  2. EARS-Info: Information-Aware Event-Driven Reallocation for Multi-Robot Exploration

    Oct 27, 2026Kabeh Mohsenzadegan, Vahid Tavakkoli, Kyandoghere KyamakyaMulti-Robot ExplorationMulti-Robot Coordination

    Department of Smart Systems Technologies, University of Klagenfurt, Austria · Faculté Polytechnique, Université de Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo

  3. Sybil-Resilient Multi-Drone Exploration of Indoor and Confined Spaces

    Oct 24, 2026Shyaam Mahesh, Aditya B Prakash, Rubal Sagwal +1Resilient Multi-Robot CoordinationMulti-Agent System Security

  4. SenseSwarm: Swarm Exploration via Neural Structure Estimation with Shared World-Anticipation for Rapid Mapping

    Oct 16, 2026Haohua Que, Haojia Gao, Mingkai Liu +7Multi-Robot ExplorationSwarm Robotics

    Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. · Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School (SIGS), Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, China. · School of Software and Microelectronics, Peking University, Beijing, China. +1

  5. Mobility-Budget-Constrained Submodular Maximization for Distributed Semantic Multi-Robot Exploration

    Oct 13, 2026Changxuan Yao, Sandilya Sai Garimella, Lu Gan +1Multi-Robot ExplorationInformative Path Planning

    The authors are with the Institute of Robotics and Intelligent Machines, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.

  6. Persistent LLM Orchestration of Heterogeneous Robot Teams via Partial Delegation to Multi-Agent Protocols

    Oct 10, 2026Maria G. Mendoza, Victoria M. Tuck, Zachary Ravichandran +2LLM Agent OrchestrationLarge Language Model-Based Robot Planning

    Department of Mechanical Engineering (M.G.M.) and Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (S.S.), University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. · Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

  7. Visual Swarm Navigation via Deep Reinforcement Learning and Evolutionary Hybrid Design

    Oct 5, 2026Álvaro Díez, Fidel AznarSwarm RoboticsMulti-Robot Exploration

    Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, University of Alicante

  8. OpenSpace Lab Solution to the IROS 2026 Indoor Exploration Competition

    Oct 1, 2026Yuxuan Zhang, Dong Li, Zezhou Sun +5Robot NavigationMulti-Robot Exploration

    China University of Mining and Technology-Beijing · Macau University of Science and Technology · Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences +3

  9. Centralized Multi-UAV Exploration and 3D Reconstruction Using Single-UAV Planners

    Sep 30, 2026João Félix Mendes, Meysam Basiri, Rodrigo VenturaMulti-Robot Motion Planning3D Reconstruction

    Institute for Systems and Robotics, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisboa, Portugal

  10. Semantic Map Sharing and Capability-Aware Coverage Planning for AI-Native 6G Robotic Coordination

    Sep 29, 2026Abdulqader Dhafer, Qi Wang, Zhou Daniel HaoMulti-Robot Motion PlanningMulti-Robot Exploration

    School of Computing and Mathematical Sciences, University of Leicester, UK · DANiLab, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

  11. Asymmetric Scout-Worker Reconnaissance for Route Validation in Unknown Environments

    Sep 29, 2026Kashif Khurshid Noori, Jaskrit Singh, Athanasios Ch. Kapoutsis +2Multi-Robot Motion PlanningEmbodied Navigation

    Robotics Engineering Department, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, MA, USA · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Democritus University of Thrace, Xanthi, Greece

  12. DORA: Divergence-Oriented Data-Relay Algorithm for Partially Connected Robot Teams

    Sep 28, 2026Jonathan Diller, Fernando Cladera, Camillo Jose Taylor +1Aerial RoboticsMulti-Robot Systems

    GRASP Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA

  13. Pairwise Approximation Can Select the Wrong Multi-Robot Plan

    Sep 24, 2026William TeoMulti-Robot ExplorationMulti-Robot Coordination

    MARMoT Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore · NEAR Lab, AI.Robotics Strategic Technology Centre, Singapore Technologies Engineering

  14. CoRelNav: Collaborative Relational Navigation for Multi-Robot Spatially Constrained Semantic Navigation

    Sep 23, 2026Jinyu He, Zihao Mao, Haonan Jin +2Robot NavigationMulti-Robot Coordination

    School of Automation, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing 100081, China

  15. Decentralized Multi-Robot Exploration with Probabilistic Peer Intent and Multi-hop Plan Propagation

    Sep 19, 2026Saurbh Singh Jamwal, Nived Chebrolu, Shivaram KalyanakrishnanMulti-Robot ExplorationMulti-Robot Coordination

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

  16. HEROIC: Heterogeneous Evidential Reasoning for Open-Vocabulary Identification and Cross-Robot Collaboration

    Sep 17, 2026Mihir Chauhan, Aarav Jain, Addison Zucek +3Multi-Robot ExplorationMulti-Robot Coordination

    IDEAS Lab, Department of Computer Science, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA · DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, Adelphi, MD, USA

  17. Exact Fusion and Coordinated Exploration in Multi-Robot Active Inference

    Sep 15, 2026Peng Wu, Mohsen Imani, Amidu Kamara +3Active InferenceMulti-Robot Exploration

    Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA. · University of California, Irvine, CA, USA. · U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Washington, DC, USA. +1

  18. Communication-Constrained Multi-Robot Exploration With Adaptive Communication Windows

    Sep 11, 2026Ben Rossano, Jaein Lim, Jonathan P. HowMulti-Robot ExplorationMulti-Agent Communication

    Aerospace Controls Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA · Draper Scholar with the Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, MA · Charles Stark Draper Laboratory, Cambridge, MA, USA

  19. Connectivity-Aware Graph Extension for Decentralized Multi-Robot Exploration

    Sep 1, 2026Béatrice Garcia Cegarra, Elena Vanneaux, Quentin Picard +1Multi-Robot ExplorationMulti-Robot Coordination

    ⋆Pˆole recherche, AMIAD, Palaiseau, France · †UI2S, ENSTA, IP Paris, Palaiseau, France

  20. Cooperative Risk-Aware Exploration in Heterogeneous Multi-Robot Systems Using Algorithmic Altruism

    Aug 28, 2026Brooks A. Butler, Jair Certório, João P. Hespanha +1Multi-Robot ExplorationMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, 74074, USA · Systems Engineering Division, Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica, Fortaleza, CE, 60415-513, Brazil · Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, 93106, USA +1

  21. Adaptive Repulsive Pheromone Clustering for Foraging Robot Swarms

    Aug 17, 2026Carlos Pena-Caballero, Constantine Tarawneh, Qi LuSwarm RoboticsMulti-Agent Coordination

    The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, Edinburg, TX, USA

  22. Planner-Conditioned Diffusion for Coordinated Multi-Agent Exploration

    Aug 17, 2026Marcus Yu Siong Teo, Jeric Lew, Tanishq Duhan +1Multi-Robot ExplorationDiffusion-Based Planning

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore

  23. Scalable Multi-Agent Maze Traversal with Local Communication

    Aug 12, 2026Julian Rau, Jahir Argote-Gerald, Grace McFassel +3Multi-Agent CoordinationMulti-Robot Exploration

    Department of Computer Science, Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany · School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, The University of Sheffield, UK · Bristol Robotics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK

  24. Decentralized Scalable Exploration via Emergent Adaptive Lévy Walks on Minimal-Sensing Platforms

    Jul 28, 2026Wai Lun Leong, Teo Swee Huat RodneyAerial RoboticsSwarm Robotics

    National University of Singapore, Singapore

  25. Quality-Adaptive Multi-UAV 3D Reconstruction with Sparse Workload Redistribution

    Jul 27, 2026Benjamin Sportich, Kenza Boubakri, Olivier Simonin +1Next-Best-View Planning3D Reconstruction

    Inria, INSA Lyon, CITI, 69621 Villeurbanne, France.

  26. COLMAR: Cooperative View Policy Learning for Multi-Agent Active 3D Reconstruction

    Jul 15, 2026Phu Pham, Damon Conover, Aniket BeraNext-Best-View Planning3D Reconstruction

    Department of Computer Science, Purdue University · DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory

  27. Min-Max Regret Task Allocation and Planning of Heterogeneous Multi-Robot System in Partially Known Environments

    Jul 15, 2026Xinkai Liang, Huixuan Chan, Ying Liu +2Minimax RegretMulti-Robot Exploration

  28. SEAMLiS: Visibility-Aware Safety for Perception-Limited Multi-Robot Exploration

    Jul 10, 2026Taekyung Kim, Rahul H Kumar, Aswin D. Menon +2Robotic ControlMulti-Robot Exploration

    Department of Robotics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA · Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA · Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, 48109, USA

  29. Dec-MARVEL: Decentralized Multi-Agent Exploration without Communication under Budget Constraints

    Jul 10, 2026Janghyun Cho, Jimmy Chiun, Guillaume Sartoretti +1Aerial RoboticsMulti-Robot Exploration

    Dept. of Artificial Intelligence, Sogang University. · Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore. · Dept. of Electronic Engineering, Sogang University.

  30. SPACE: Swarm Pheromone Fields for Adaptive Collision-Aware Exploration

    Jun 28, 2026Haohua Que, Haojia Gao, Mingkai Liu +3Robot Collision AvoidanceSwarm Robotics

    Department of Electronic Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China. · Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School (SIGS), Tsinghua University, Shenzhen, China. · School of Software and Microelectronics, Peking University, Beijing, China.