# Active Metric-Semantic Mapping by Multiple Aerial Robots

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2209.08465 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.08465/

## Key facts

- Cited by 7 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 18 Sep 2022.

## Built on by (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Large Language Models for Multi-Robot Systems: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.03814/) (2025)
- [SPINE: Online Semantic Planning for Missions with Incomplete Natural Language Specifications in Unstructured Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.03035/) (2024)
- [Multimodal LLM Guided Exploration and Active Mapping using Fisher Information](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.17422/) (2024)
- [Graph Neural Networks for Decentralized Multi-Agent Perimeter Defense](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.09689/) (2023)
- [Remember with Confidence: Uncertainty Quantification for Spatio-temporal Memory with Probabilistic Guarantees](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.08277/) (2026)
- [Autonomous Advanced Aerial Mobility -- An End-to-end Autonomy Framework for UAVs and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04472/) (2023)
- [VoxelFix: Post-Hoc Semantic Correction of Completed 3D Voxel Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.05114/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Traditional approaches for active mapping focus on building geometric maps. For most real-world applications, however, actionable information is related to semantically meaningful objects in the environment. We propose an approach to the active metric-semantic mapping problem that enables multiple heterogeneous robots to collaboratively build a map of the environment. The robots actively explore to minimize the uncertainties in both semantic (object classification) and geometric (object modeling) information. We represent the environment using informative but sparse object models, each consisting of a basic shape and a semantic class label, and characterize uncertainties empirically using a large amount of real-world data. Given a prior map, we use this model to select actions for each robot to minimize uncertainties. The performance of our algorithm is demonstrated through multi-robot experiments in diverse real-world environments. The proposed framework is applicable to a wide range of real-world problems, such as precision agriculture, infrastructure inspection, and asset mapping in factories. A demo video can be found at https://youtu.be/S86SgXi54oU.