Simultaneous Localization and Mapping

Also known as SLAM

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Overview

SLAM estimates a robot’s changing position and a consistent map at the same time, enabling navigation where GPS or prior maps are unavailable. Systems combine camera, LiDAR, radar, sonar, and inertial measurements using feature or scan matching, sensor-fusion filters, and factor-graph optimization with loop closure to limit accumulated drift. Dense mapping increasingly uses neural fields, semantic scene graphs, and 3D Gaussian splatting, evaluated on indoor RGB-D benchmarks as well as outdoor driving and field-robot datasets. A central challenge is balancing accuracy, dense and useful maps, and real-time resource limits while remaining reliable in dynamic, low-texture, or changing environments.

Latest papers

CardsList

198 papers20 papers in the last four weeks, down 5% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. Compact Keyframe-Optimized Multi-Agent Gaussian Splatting SLAM

    Apr 1, 2026Monica M. Q. Li, Pierre-Yves Lajoie, Jialiang Liu +1Simultaneous Localization and Mapping3DGS SLAM

    Department of Computer Engineering, Polytechnique Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada · Department of Mathematics, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA

  2. Semantic Zone-Based Map Management for Stable AI-Integrated Mobile Robots

    Mar 31, 2026Huichang Yun, Seungho YooMobile RoboticsSimultaneous Localization and Mapping

    Dept. of computer Engineering, Pukyong National University, Busan, Korea

  3. M2H-MX: Multi-Task Semantic and Geometric Perception for Real-Time Monocular 3D Scene Graph Construction

    Mar 31, 2026U. V. B. L. Udugama, George Vosselman, Francesco NexRobotic PerceptionMulti-Task Learning

    Department of Earth Observation Science, University of Twente, Enschede, 7522 NH, The Netherlands

  4. Massive Parallel Deep Reinforcement Learning for Active SLAM

    Mar 26, 2026Martín Arce Llobera, Julio A. Placed, Mariano De Paula +1RL for RoboticsSimultaneous Localization and Mapping

    Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales, Universidad de Buenos Aires, Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires, C1428EGA, Argentina · Instituto Tecnológico de Aragón (ITA) and the University of Zaragoza, María de Luna 3-7, Zaragoza, Spain

  5. Variable-Resolution Virtual Maps for Autonomous Exploration with Unmanned Surface Vehicles (USVs)

    Mar 24, 2026Ye Li, Yewei Huang, Yongchang Xie +4Simultaneous Localization and MappingMobile Robotics

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, University College London, London, UK · Department of Mechanical Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ, USA · Department of Computer Science, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, USA

  6. MapForest: A Modular Field Robotics System for Forest Mapping and Invasive Species Localization

    Mar 23, 2026Sandeep Zachariah, Francisco Yandun, Sachet Korada +1Simultaneous Localization and MappingRemote Sensing

    Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA.

  7. Memory-Efficient Boundary Map for Large-Scale Occupancy Grid Mapping

    Mar 23, 2026Benxu Tang, Yunfan Ren, Yixi Cai +6Occupancy Grid MappingSimultaneous Localization and Mapping

    Mechatronics and Robotic Systems (MaRS) Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR, China. · Department of Robotics, Perception, and Learning, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden.

  8. TRGS-SLAM: IMU-Aided Gaussian Splatting SLAM for Blurry, Rolling Shutter, and Noisy Thermal Images

    Mar 20, 2026Spencer Carmichael, Katherine A. SkinnerSimultaneous Localization and Mapping3DGS SLAM

    University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI USA

  9. HortiMulti: A Multi-Sensor Dataset for Localisation and Mapping in Horticultural Polytunnels

    Mar 20, 2026Shuoyuan Xu, Zhipeng Zhong, Tiago Barros +4Robot LocalizationRobotic Perception

    Department of Aeronautical and Automotive Engineering, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, UK, LE11 3TU · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Institute of Systems and Robotics, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal · Antobot Ltd, Arise Innovation Hub, Chelmsford, Essex, UK, CM1 1SQ

  10. Full Stack Navigation, Mapping, and Planning for the Lunar Autonomy Challenge

    Mar 18, 2026Adam Dai, Asta Wu, Keidai Iiyama +4Robot NavigationSpace Robotics

    Stanford University

  11. Visual SLAM with DEM Anchoring for Lunar Surface Navigation

    Mar 18, 2026Adam Dai, Guillem Casadesus Vila, Grace GaoSimultaneous Localization and MappingVisual SLAM

    Stanford University William F. Durand Building 496 Lomita Mall Stanford, CA 94305

  12. 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

  13. Thermal Image Refinement with Depth Estimation using Recurrent Networks for Monocular ORB-SLAM3

    Mar 16, 2026Hürkan Şahin, Huy Xuan Pham, Van Huyen Dang +2Depth EstimationMonocular Depth Estimation

    Automatic Control Group (RAT), Paderborn University, 33098 Paderborn, Germany · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Aarhus University, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark, and also with Upteko ApS, Denmark

  14. 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.

  15. D-SLAMSpoof: An Environment-Agnostic LiDAR Spoofing Attack using Dynamic Point Cloud Injection

    Mar 11, 2026Rokuto Nagata, Kenji Koide, Kazuma Ikeda +2Physical Adversarial AttacksSimultaneous Localization and Mapping

    Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Keio University · Department of Information Technology and Human Factors, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

  16. MirrorDrift: Actuated Mirror-Based Attacks on LiDAR SLAM

    Mar 11, 2026Rokuto Nagata, Kenji Koide, Kazuma Ikeda +3Physical Adversarial AttacksLiDAR Localization

    Department of Electronics and Electrical Engineering, Keio University · Department of Information Technology and Human Factors, the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

  17. Edge-Assisted Multi-Robot Visual-Inertial SLAM with Efficient Communication

    Mar 11, 2026Xin Liu, Shuhuan Wen, Jing Zhao +2Simultaneous Localization and MappingVisual-Inertial SLAM

    the Department of Key Lab of Industrial Computer Control Engineering of Hebei Province, Engineering Research Center of the Ministry of Education for Intelligent Control System and Intelligent Equipment, Yanshan University, Qinhuangdao, 066004, China. · Intelligent Transport System Research Center, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China · the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Alberta, Canada. +1

  18. VarSplat: Uncertainty-aware 3D Gaussian Splatting for Robust RGB-D SLAM

    Mar 10, 2026Anh Thuan Tran, Jana KoseckaSimultaneous Localization and Mapping3DGS SLAM

    Department of Computer Science, George Mason University

  19. 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

  20. MipSLAM: Alias-Free Gaussian Splatting SLAM

    Mar 7, 2026Yingzhao Li, Yan Li, Shixiong Tian +33DGS SLAMSimultaneous Localization and Mapping

    State Key Laboratory of Robotics and Systems (HIT), Harbin Institute of Technology. · Yangtze River Delta HlT Robot Technology Research Institute. · Department of Computer Science, National University of Singapore.

  21. Loop Closure via Maximal Cliques in 3D LiDAR-Based SLAM

    Mar 5, 2026Javier Laserna, Saurabh Gupta, Oscar Martinez Mozos +2Loop Closure DetectionSimultaneous Localization and Mapping

    The authors are with the ETSIDI, Universidad Polit´ecnica de Madrid, 28012 Madrid, Spain. · The authors are with the Center for Robotics, University of Bonn, Germany. · Cyrill Stachniss is additionally with the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence, Germany.

  22. AIM-SLAM: Dense Monocular SLAM via Adaptive and Informative Multi-View Keyframe Prioritization with Foundation Model

    Mar 5, 2026Jinwoo Jeon, Dong-Uk Seo, Eungchang Mason Lee +1Simultaneous Localization and MappingVisual SLAM

    The School of Electrical Engineering, KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea · KAIST InnoCORE LLM, KAIST, Daejeon, 34141, Republic of Korea

  23. HBRB-BoW: A Retrained Bag-of-Words Vocabulary for ORB-SLAM via Hierarchical BRB-KMeans

    Mar 4, 2026Minjae Lee, Sang-Min Choi, Gun-Woo Kim +1Simultaneous Localization and MappingHierarchical Clustering

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Gyeongsang National University, Republic of Korea

  24. Radar-based Pose Optimization for HD Map Generation from Noisy Multi-Drive Vehicle Fleet Data

    Mar 3, 2026Alexander Blumberg, Jonas Merkert, Christoph StillerHD Map ConstructionSimultaneous Localization and Mapping

    Institute of Measurement and Control Systems, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany

  25. The Dresden Dataset for 4D Reconstruction of Non-Rigid Abdominal Surgical Scenes

    Mar 3, 2026Reuben Docea, Rayan Younis, Yonghao Long +103D Reconstruction4D Reconstruction

    Department of Translational Surgical Oncology, National Center for Tumor Diseases (NCT), NCT/UCC Dresden, a partnership between DKFZ, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, TUD Dresden University of Technology, and Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), Dresden, Germany · Department of Translational Surgical Oncology, NCT/UCC Dresden, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, TUD Dresden University of Technology, Fetscherstraße 74, 01307 Dresden, Germany · Department for Visceral, Thoracic and Vascular Surgery, Faculty of Medicine and University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany +2

  26. PathSpace: Rapid continuous map approximation for efficient SLAM using B-Splines in constrained environments

    Mar 3, 2026Aduen Benjumea, Andrew Bradley, Alexander Rast +1Simultaneous Localization and Mapping

    School of Engineering, Computing & Mathematics, Oxford Brookes University, Oxford, UK

  27. riMESA: Consensus ADMM for Real-World Collaborative SLAM

    Mar 1, 2026Daniel McGann, Michael KaessSimultaneous Localization and MappingPose Graph Optimization

    The authors are with the Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.

  28. How IMU Drift Influences Multi-Radar Inertial Odometry for Ground Robots in Subterranean Terrains

    Feb 27, 2026Moumita Mukherjee, Magnus Norén, Anton Koval +2Radar-Inertial OdometryRobotics

  29. Dream-SLAM: Dreaming the Unseen for Active SLAM in Dynamic Environments

    Feb 25, 2026Xiangqi Meng, Pengxu Hou, Zhenjun Zhao +4Simultaneous Localization and MappingVisual SLAM

    Thrust of Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China. · University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain. · School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich, Munich, Germany. +1

  30. RU4D-SLAM: Reweighting Uncertainty in Gaussian Splatting SLAM for 4D Scene Reconstruction

    Feb 24, 2026Yangfan Zhao, Hanwei Zhang, Ke Huang +33DGS SLAMSimultaneous Localization and Mapping

    Capital Normal University · Saarland University · Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University +1