Konstantinos Gounis;Sotiris A. Tegos;Dimitrios Tyrovolas;Panagiotis D. Diamantoulakis;George K. Karagiannidis
{"title":"When Simultaneous Localization and Mapping Meets Wireless Communications: A Survey","authors":"Konstantinos Gounis;Sotiris A. Tegos;Dimitrios Tyrovolas;Panagiotis D. Diamantoulakis;George K. Karagiannidis","doi":"10.1109/COMST.2026.3707294","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The availability of commercial wireless communication and sensing equipment combined with the advancements in intelligent autonomous systems scontribute to robust joint communications and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). Autonomous vehicles are one of the several applications that directly benefit from millimeter-wave (mmWave) access, facilitating improved communications and accurate localization in the interest of control and navigation. This paper surveys the state-of-the-art in the intersection of SLAM and Wireless Communications, attributing the bidirectional impact of each with a focus on visual SLAM (V-SLAM) integration. We provide an overview of key concepts related to geometric channel modeling, and radio frequency (RF)-based localization and sensing. Several research directions are considered, including the interpretation of SLAM as a unified perception-estimation framework driven by wireless communications-based positioning and visual information, the integration of communication-aware objectives in active perception, and multi-modal odometry through the fusion of wireless measurements and complementary sensing modalities. We analyze estimation and control approaches such as Bayesian filters, feature-based pose estimation, perception-aware motion control, spatial methods for signal processing such as vector fields, and key technological aspects. Among other interesting findings, we observe that monocular V-SLAM might greatly benefit from RF/mmWave signals, as the latter can serve as a proxy for scale ambiguity resolution. Conversely, we find that wireless communications in the context of 5G and beyond can potentially benefit from visual odometry and landmark detection methods in the context of optimal geometric path prediction for wireless channels. Moreover, we examine other perception sources besides monocular vision for SLAM such as Radio SLAM, wireless fidelity (WiFi) SLAM, and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) SLAM, and describe a twofold relation with wireless communications. Finally, integrated solutions performing joint communications and localization appear to be in their infancy: theoretical and practical advancements could add higher-level localization and semantic perception capabilities to RF/mmWave and multi-antenna technologies.","PeriodicalId":55029,"journal":{"name":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","volume":"28 ","pages":"6481-6511"},"PeriodicalIF":50.6000,"publicationDate":"2026-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials","FirstCategoryId":"94","ListUrlMain":"https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11579359/","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"计算机科学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2026/6/25 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"COMPUTER SCIENCE, INFORMATION SYSTEMS","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The availability of commercial wireless communication and sensing equipment combined with the advancements in intelligent autonomous systems scontribute to robust joint communications and simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM). Autonomous vehicles are one of the several applications that directly benefit from millimeter-wave (mmWave) access, facilitating improved communications and accurate localization in the interest of control and navigation. This paper surveys the state-of-the-art in the intersection of SLAM and Wireless Communications, attributing the bidirectional impact of each with a focus on visual SLAM (V-SLAM) integration. We provide an overview of key concepts related to geometric channel modeling, and radio frequency (RF)-based localization and sensing. Several research directions are considered, including the interpretation of SLAM as a unified perception-estimation framework driven by wireless communications-based positioning and visual information, the integration of communication-aware objectives in active perception, and multi-modal odometry through the fusion of wireless measurements and complementary sensing modalities. We analyze estimation and control approaches such as Bayesian filters, feature-based pose estimation, perception-aware motion control, spatial methods for signal processing such as vector fields, and key technological aspects. Among other interesting findings, we observe that monocular V-SLAM might greatly benefit from RF/mmWave signals, as the latter can serve as a proxy for scale ambiguity resolution. Conversely, we find that wireless communications in the context of 5G and beyond can potentially benefit from visual odometry and landmark detection methods in the context of optimal geometric path prediction for wireless channels. Moreover, we examine other perception sources besides monocular vision for SLAM such as Radio SLAM, wireless fidelity (WiFi) SLAM, and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) SLAM, and describe a twofold relation with wireless communications. Finally, integrated solutions performing joint communications and localization appear to be in their infancy: theoretical and practical advancements could add higher-level localization and semantic perception capabilities to RF/mmWave and multi-antenna technologies.
期刊介绍:
IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials is an online journal published by the IEEE Communications Society for tutorials and surveys covering all aspects of the communications field. Telecommunications technology is progressing at a rapid pace, and the IEEE Communications Society is committed to providing researchers and other professionals the information and tools to stay abreast. IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorials focuses on integrating and adding understanding to the existing literature on communications, putting results in context. Whether searching for in-depth information about a familiar area or an introduction into a new area, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials aims to be the premier source of peer-reviewed, comprehensive tutorials and surveys, and pointers to further sources. IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials publishes only articles exclusively written for IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials and go through a rigorous review process before their publication in the quarterly issues.
A tutorial article in the IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials should be designed to help the reader to become familiar with and learn something specific about a chosen topic. In contrast, the term survey, as applied here, is defined to mean a survey of the literature. A survey article in IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials should provide a comprehensive review of developments in a selected area, covering its development from its inception to its current state and beyond, and illustrating its development through liberal citations from the literature. Both tutorials and surveys should be tutorial in nature and should be written in a style comprehensible to readers outside the specialty of the article.