Robot Localization

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Overview

Robot localization estimates a robot’s pose over time, either relative to its starting point or within a global map, so it can navigate and act safely. Common approaches fuse cameras, LiDAR, radar, inertial sensors, GNSS, and radio ranging with Kalman filters, particle filters, or factor-graph optimization; map matching and place recognition help recover pose or recognize previously visited places. Recent methods also use semantic landmarks, cross-view imagery, learned representations, and cooperative measurements shared between robots. A central challenge is maintaining reliable, well-calibrated estimates when sensors lose information, environments change, or scenes are repetitive, while keeping computation practical for onboard use.

Latest papers

CardsList

179 papers21 papers in the last four weeks, up 11% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. LoD-Loc v3: Generalized Aerial Localization in Dense Cities using Instance Silhouette Alignment

    Mar 20, 2026Shuaibang Peng, Juelin Zhu, Xia Li +4Robot LocalizationMap-Based Localization

    National University of Defense Technology · Northwestern Polytechnical University

  2. Benchmarking Visual Feature Representations for LiDAR-Inertial-Visual Odometry Under Challenging Conditions

    Mar 19, 2026Eunseon Choi, Junwoo Hong, Daehan Lee +9Adaptive Lidar-Inertial OdometryVisual Odometry

    Department of Covergence IT Engineering, Pohang University of Science and Technology(POSTECH), Pohang 37673, Republic of Korea · School of Mechanical Engineering, Kunsan National University, Jeonbuk 54150, Republic of Korea · Department of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Sejong University, Seoul 05006, Republic of Korea +2

  3. PA-LVIO: Real-Time LiDAR-Visual-Inertial Odometry and Mapping with Pose-Only Bundle Adjustment

    Mar 17, 2026Hailiang Tang, Tisheng Zhang, Liqiang Wang +3Adaptive Lidar-Inertial OdometrySimultaneous Localization and Mapping

    the GNSS Research Center, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China · the Hubei Technology Innovation Center for Spatiotemporal Information and Positioning Navigation, Wuhan 430079, China · the Hubei Luojia Laboratory, Wuhan 430079, China

  4. Geometry-Aware Set-Membership Multilateration: Directional Bounds and Anchor Selection

    Mar 15, 2026Giuseppe C. CalafioreRobot Localization

    Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

  5. Semantic Landmark Particle Filter for Robot Localisation in Vineyards

    Mar 11, 2026Rajitha de Silva, Jonathan Cox, James R. Heselden +3Robot LocalizationLiDAR Localization

    Lincoln Centre for Autonomous Systems (L-CAS), University of Lincoln, UK. · MAVLab, TU Delft, Netherlands. · Robotics Systems Lab, ETH Zurich, Switzerland.

  6. Degeneracy-Resilient Teach and Repeat for Geometrically Challenging Environments Using FMCW Lidar

    Mar 10, 2026Katya M. Papais, Wenda Zhao, Timothy D. BarfootEmbodied NavigationRobot Navigation

    The authors are with the Institute for Aerospace Studies, University of Toronto, Canada.

  7. FoMo: A Multi-Season Dataset for Robot Navigation in Forêt Montmorency

    Mar 9, 2026Matěj Boxan, Gabriel Jeanson, Alexander Krawciw +5Simultaneous Localization and MappingRobotic Data Collection

    Norlab, Universit´e Laval, Quebec City, Canada · University of Toronto Robotics Institute, Toronto, Canada

  8. EndoSERV: A Vision-based Endoluminal Robot Navigation System

    Mar 9, 2026Junyang Wu, Fangfang Xie, Minghui Zhang +4Robot NavigationRobot Localization

    Institute of Medical Robotics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China, 200240. · Shanghai Chest Hospital, Shanghai, China.

  9. L3L^3:Scene-agnostic Visual Localization in the Wild

    Mar 9, 2026Yu Zhang, Muhua Zhu, Yifei Xue +2Robot Localization

    Hunan University, Changsha, Hunan 410082, China

  10. Model-Based and Neural-Aided Approaches for Dog Dead Reckoning

    Mar 8, 2026Gal Versano, Itai Savin, Itzik KleinRobot LocalizationInertial Odometry

    Hatter Department of Marine Technologies, University of Haifa, Israel

  11. CFEAR-Teach-and-Repeat: Fast and Accurate Radar-only Localization

    Mar 6, 2026Maximilian Hilger, Daniel Adolfsson, Ralf Becker +2Robot LocalizationMap-Based Localization

    Chair of Perception for Intelligent Systems, Munich Institute of Robotics and Machine Intelligence, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany · Robot Navigation and Perception Lab of the AASS Research Center, Örebro University, Örebro, Sweden · Bosch Rexroth, Germany

  12. PROBE: Probabilistic Occupancy BEV Encoding with Analytical Translation Robustness for 3D Place Recognition

    Mar 6, 2026Jinseop Lee, Byoungho Lee, Gichul YooLiDAR Place RecognitionBird's-Eye-View Representation

    SK Intellix, Seoul, Republic of Korea

  13. KD-EKF: Knowledge-Distilled Adaptive Covariance EKF for Robust UWB/PDR Indoor Localization

    Mar 6, 2026Kyeonghyun Yoo, Wooyong Jung, Namkyung Yoon +3Wireless LocalizationRobot Localization

  14. VinePT-Map: Pole-Trunk Semantic Mapping for Resilient Autonomous Robotics in Vineyards

    Mar 5, 2026Giorgio Audrito, Mauro Martini, Alessandro Navone +2Semantic MappingAgricultural Robotics

    Department of Electronics and Telecommunications, Politecnico di Torino, 10129, Torino, Italy.

  15. Integrated cooperative localization of heterogeneous measurement swarm: A unified data-driven method

    Mar 5, 2026Kunrui Ze, Wei Wang, Guibin Sun +3Cooperative LocalizationRobot Localization

    School of Automation Science and Electrical Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China · Zhongguancun Laboratory, Beijing 100083, China

  16. U-Parking: Distributed UWB-Assisted Autonomous Parking System with Robust Localization and Intelligent Planning

    Mar 5, 2026Yiang Wu, Qiong Wu, Pingyi Fan +4Autonomous ParkingRobot Localization

    Jiangnan University · School of Information Engineering, Jiangxi Provincial Key Laboratory of Advanced Signal Processing and Intelligent Communications, Nanchang University · Zhuhai Fudan Innovation Institute +5

  17. Long-Term Visual Localization in Dynamic Benthic Environments: A Dataset, Footprint-Based Ground Truth, and Visual Place Recognition Benchmark

    Mar 4, 2026Martin Kvisvik Larsen, Oscar PizarroRobot LocalizationVisual Place Recognition

    Department of Marine Technology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

  18. TreeLoc++: Robust 6-DoF LiDAR Localization in Forests with a Compact Digital Forest Inventory

    Mar 4, 2026Minwoo Jung, Dongjae Lee, Nived Chebrolu +3RoboticsLiDAR Localization

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Seoul National University, Seoul, South Korea · Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, India · Oxford Robotics Institute, Department of Engineering Science, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

  19. 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

  20. UltraStar: Semantic-Aware Star Graph Modeling for Echocardiography Navigation

    Mar 2, 2026Teng Wang, Haojun Jiang, Chenxi Li +6EchocardiographyUltrasound Imaging

    Department of Automation, BNRist, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China · School of Automation, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China · Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence, Beijing, China +1

  21. RGB-Event HyperGraph Prompt for Kilometer Marker Recognition based on Pre-trained Foundation Models

    Feb 25, 2026Xiaoyu Xian, Shiao Wang, Xiao Wang +2RGB-Event Sensor FusionEvent-Based Vision

    School of Transportation Science and Engineering, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China · CRRC Academy Co., Ltd, Beijing, 100070, China · School of Computer Science and Technology, Anhui University, Hefei 230601, China.

  22. Distributed and Consistent Multi-Robot Visual-Inertial-Ranging Odometry on Lie Groups

    Feb 22, 2026Ziwei Kang, Yizhi ZhouRobot State EstimationRobot Localization

    School of Control and Computer Engineering, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, VA 102206, China · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA 22030, USA

  23. Docking and Persistent Operations for a Resident Underwater Vehicle

    Feb 18, 2026Leonard Günzel, Gabrielė Kasparavičiūtė, Ambjørn Grimsrud Waldum +6Underwater RoboticsAutonomous Underwater Navigation

    Applied Underwater Robotics Lab NTNU Trondheim, Norway

  24. Graph-Loc: Robust Graph-Based LiDAR Pose Tracking with Compact Structural Map Priors under Low Observability and Occlusion

    Feb 9, 2026Wentao Zhao, Yihe Niu, Zikun Chen +4LiDAR LocalizationMap-Based Localization

    School of Automation and Intelligent Sensing, Institute of Medical Robotics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China · School of Mathematical Sciences Shanghai Jiao Tong University

  25. CREPES-X: Hierarchical Bearing-Distance-Inertial Direct Cooperative Relative Pose Estimation System

    Dec 31, 2025Zhehan Li, Jiadong Lu, Zheng Wang +6Relative Pose EstimationMulti-Robot Systems

    State Key Laboratory of Industrial Control Technology, Institute of Cyber-Systems and Control, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. · Huzhou Institute of Zhejiang University, Huzhou, China. · University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA. +1

  26. Scensory: Real-Time Robotic Olfactory Perception for Joint Identification and Source Localization

    Sep 11, 2025Yanbaihui Liu, Erica Babusci, Claudia K. Gunsch +1Robot NavigationRobot Localization

    Department of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA. · Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Duke University, Durham, NC, USA. · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering,Duke University, Durham, NC, USA. +1

  27. GSVisLoc: Generalizable Visual Localization for Gaussian Splatting Scene Representations

    Aug 25, 2025Fadi Khatib, Dror Moran, Guy Trostianetsky +3Visual Place RecognitionCamera Pose Estimation

    Weizmann Institute of Science · NVIDIA

  28. Image-based Geo-localization for Robotics: Are Black-box Vision-Language Models there yet?

    Jan 28, 2025Sania Waheed, Bruno Ferrarini, Michael Milford +2VLM RobustnessCross-View Geo-Localization

    School of Electronics and Computer Science, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ · MyWay srl, Via Osti, 6 - 29010 Vernasca (PC) · School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, QLD 4000, Australia +1

  29. Observability-Aware Control for Quadrotor Formation Flight with Range-only Measurement

    Nov 6, 2024H S Helson Go, Ching Lok Chong, Longhao Qian +1Multi-Robot Formation ControlCooperative Localization

    Institute for Aerospace Studies, University of Toronto, 4925 Dufferin St., North York, Ontario, Canada, M3H 5T6 · Oxford University, OCIAM