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. IRIS-SLAM: Unified Geo-Instance Representations for Robust Semantic Localization and Mapping

    Feb 21, 2026Tingyang Xiao, Liu Liu, Wei Feng +6Open-Vocabulary Semantic MappingSimultaneous Localization and Mapping

    Horizon Robotics · D-Robotics · S-Lab, Nanyang Technological University +1

  2. GrandTour: A Legged Robotics Dataset in the Wild for Multi-Modal Perception and State Estimation

    Feb 20, 2026Turcan Tuna, Jonas Frey, Frank Fu +5Legged RoboticsSimultaneous Localization and Mapping

    Robotic Systems Lab, ETH Zurich, Zurich 8092, Switzerland · 1ETH Zurich, Switzerland · 2Stanford University, USA +1

  3. Topology-Aware Decision Making for Multi-Session Localization and Mapping

    Feb 19, 2026Lorenzo Montano-Olivan, Julio A. Placed, Luis Montano +1Simultaneous Localization and MappingMap-Based Localization

    Instituto Tecnológico de Aragón (ITA), María de Luna 7, Zaragoza, Spain

  4. Markerless Robot Detection and 6D Pose Estimation for Multi-Agent SLAM

    Feb 18, 2026Markus Rueggeberg, Maximilian Ulmer, Maximilian Durner +4Simultaneous Localization and MappingRelative Pose Estimation

    Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics, German Aerospace Center (DLR), Weßling, Germany · Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Karlsruhe, Germany

  5. SurfSLAM: Sim-to-Real Underwater Stereo Reconstruction For Real-Time SLAM

    Jan 15, 2026Onur Bagoren, Seth Isaacson, Sacchin Sundar +6Simultaneous Localization and MappingMetric Depth Estimation

    Department of Robotics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA

  6. Rethinking Densification in Gaussian SLAM: A Stationary Sampling Perspective

    Dec 28, 2025Wei-Tse Cheng, Yen-Jen Chiou, Yuan-Fu YangSimultaneous Localization and Mapping3DGS SLAM

    National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University

  7. Super4DR: 4D Radar-centric Self-supervised Odometry and Gaussian-based Map Optimization

    Dec 10, 2025Zhiheng Li, Weihua Wang, Qiang Shen +2Simultaneous Localization and Mapping3D Gaussian Splatting

    Zheng Fang*

  8. Calibrated Keyframe-Segment Selection for Descriptor-Agnostic LiDAR Loop Closure in Repetitive Environments

    Dec 10, 2025Jaehyun Kim, Seungwon Choi, Wonseok Kang +1Loop Closure DetectionSimultaneous Localization and Mapping

  9. Robust 3DGS-based SLAM via Adaptive Kernel Smoothing

    Nov 28, 2025Shouhe Zhang, Dayong Ren, Wen Jie Li +4Simultaneous Localization and Mapping3D Gaussian Splatting

    School of Computer Science and Technology, Xinjiang University · The National Key Laboratory for Novel Software Technology, Nanjing University · Southwest University of Political Science and Law +2

  10. TurboMap: GPU-Accelerated Local Mapping for Visual SLAM

    Nov 3, 2025Parsa Hosseininejad, Kimia Khabiri, Shishir Gopinath +3Simultaneous Localization and MappingBundle Adjustment

    Simon Fraser University. · University at Buffalo.

  11. BIM Informed Visual SLAM for Construction Environments

    Sep 17, 2025Asier Bikandi-Noya, Miguel Fernandez-Cortizas, Muhammad Shaheer +3Simultaneous Localization and MappingVisual SLAM

    Automation and Robotics Research Group, Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability, and Trust (SnT), University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg

  12. DINO-SLAM: DINO-informed RGB-D SLAM for Neural Implicit and Explicit Representations

    Jul 25, 2025Ziren Gong, Xiaohan Li, Fabio Tosi +4Simultaneous Localization and MappingNeural Representation Geometry

    University of Bologna, Italy · Faculty of Dentistry, The University of Hong Kong, China · Rawmantic AI, China +1

  13. Region Based SLAM-Aware Exploration: Efficient and Robust Autonomous Mapping Strategy That Can Scale

    Apr 14, 2025Megha Maheshwari, Sadegh Rabiee, He Yin +3Simultaneous Localization and MappingMobile Robotics

    Amazon Lab126

  14. 2Fast-2Lamaa: Large-Scale Lidar-Inertial Localization and Mapping with Continuous Distance Fields

    Oct 7, 2024Cedric Le Gentil, Raphael Falque, Daniil Lisus +1Simultaneous Localization and MappingInertial Odometry

    Robotics Institute, University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies, Canada · Robotics Institute, University of Technology Sydney, Australia

  15. Generation of Uncertainty-Aware High-Level Spatial Concepts in Factorized 3D Scene Graphs via Graph Neural Networks

    Sep 18, 2024Jose Andres Millan-Romera, Muhammad Shaheer, Miguel Fernandez-Cortizas +3Simultaneous Localization and Mapping3D SGG

    Automation and Robotics Research Group, Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust (SnT), University of Luxembourg · University of Amsterdam

  16. A Survey on Reinforcement Learning Applications in SLAM

    Aug 26, 2024Mohammad Dehghani Tezerjani, Mohammad Khoshnazar, Mohammadhamed Tangestanizadeh +2Simultaneous Localization and MappingRL for Robotics

    Computer Science and Engineering, University of North Texas, Denton, USA · Institute of Artificial Intelligence, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany · Computer Science and Engineering, University of California Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, USA +1

  17. NGD-SLAM: Towards Real-Time Dynamic SLAM without GPU

    May 12, 2024Yuhao Zhang, Mihai Bujanca, Mikel LujánSimultaneous Localization and MappingDynamic SLAM

    University of Manchester. 2University of Cambridge. · 3Qualcomm Technologies XR Labs, Austria.

  18. NeuSE: Neural SE(3)-Equivariant Embedding for Long-Term Object-Based Simultaneous Localization and Mapping

    Mar 13, 2023Jiahui Fu, Yilun Du, Kurran Singh +2Simultaneous Localization and MappingVisual SLAM

    MIT CSAIL