Rapid and robust large-scale SLAM mapping

Determine algorithmic and system-level approaches for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) that enable rapid and robust mapping of large-scale environments, overcoming the limitations observed in single-agent SLAM systems.

Background

The paper motivates multi-robot collaborative SLAM by noting that single-agent SLAM, despite significant progress, struggles to efficiently and reliably map large-scale environments. This limitation is particularly evident in complex real-world scenarios such as urban driving and large-area exploration where scalability, robustness, and global consistency are crucial.

The survey positions 3D Gaussian Splatting (3DGS) as a promising explicit representation for high-fidelity, real-time mapping, and discusses how collaborative multi-agent systems could address the scalability and robustness challenges. However, the fundamental problem of achieving rapid and robust large-scale mapping remains open, motivating research into architectures, data fusion, communication strategies, and consistency mechanisms.

References

While single-agent SLAM has seen remarkable progress, the task of mapping large-scale environments quickly and robustly remains an open problem.

— A Survey on Collaborative SLAM with 3D Gaussian Splatting  (2510.23988 - Xuan et al., 28 Oct 2025) in Introduction (Section 1)

It is therefore unclear whether global SLAM optimization actually limits drift in this setting.

— Evaluation of Monocular SLAM Systems on High-Altitude Nadir UAV Footage  (2608.18632 - Spagnolo et al., 19 Aug 2026) in Section 1, Introduction

Despite these successes, achieving reliable and efficient performance in large-scale underground environments remains an open challenge, primarily due to the limitations of onboard computation and memory required for autonomous operation.

— SUPER ODOMETRY 2.0: Resilient Odometry via Hierarchical Adaptation  (2608.25427 - Zhao et al., 26 Aug 2026) in Supplementary Materials, section “Experiments,” subsection “DARPA Subterranean Challenge”