# Splatblox: Traversability-Aware Gaussian Splatting for Outdoor Robot Navigation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.18525 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.18525/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 40 of its 57 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Nov 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 40)

- [3D Gaussian Splatting for Real-Time Radiance Field Rendering](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04079/) (2023)
- [Image Segmentation Using Text and Image Prompts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10003/) (2021)
- [LM-Nav: Robotic Navigation with Large Pre-Trained Models of Language, Vision, and Action](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.04429/) (2022)
- [Gaussian Splatting SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.06741/) (2023)
- [SplaTAM: Splat, Track & Map 3D Gaussians for Dense RGB-D SLAM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.02126/) (2023)
- [NoMaD: Goal Masked Diffusion Policies for Navigation and Exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.07896/) (2023)
- [ViNT: A Foundation Model for Visual Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.14846/) (2023)
- [Taming 3DGS: High-Quality Radiance Fields with Limited Resources](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.15643/) (2024)
- [LIO-SAM: Tightly-coupled Lidar Inertial Odometry via Smoothing and Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.00258/) (2020)
- [Voxblox: Incremental 3D Euclidean Signed Distance Fields for On-Board MAV Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.03631/) (2016)
- [Information Theoretic Model Predictive Control: Theory and Applications to Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1707.02342/) (2017)
- [The Marathon 2: A Navigation System](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.00368/) (2020)
- [Splat-Nav: Safe Real-Time Robot Navigation in Gaussian Splatting Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.02751/) (2024)
- [GANav: Efficient Terrain Segmentation for Robot Navigation in Unstructured Outdoor Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.04233/) (2021)
- [GaussNav: Gaussian Splatting for Visual Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11625/) (2024)
- [3D Gaussian Splatting in Robotics: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.12262/) (2024)
- [CoNVOI: Context-aware Navigation using Vision Language Models in Outdoor and Indoor Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.15637/) (2024)
- [On-the-fly Reconstruction for Large-Scale Novel View Synthesis from Unposed Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.05558/) (2025)
- [RoadRunner -- Learning Traversability Estimation for Autonomous Off-road Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.19341/) (2024)
- [GrASPE: Graph based Multimodal Fusion for Robot Navigation in Unstructured Outdoor Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.05722/) (2022)
- [nvblox: GPU-Accelerated Incremental Signed Distance Field Mapping](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.00626/) (2023)
- [GSFusion: Online RGB-D Mapping Where Gaussian Splatting Meets TSDF Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.12677/) (2024)
- [Gaussian-LIC: Real-Time Photo-Realistic SLAM with Gaussian Splatting and LiDAR-Inertial-Camera Fusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.06926/) (2024)
- [Wild Visual Navigation: Fast Traversability Learning via Pre-Trained Models and Online Self-Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.07110/) (2024)
- [RT-GuIDE: Real-Time Gaussian Splatting for Information-Driven Exploration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.18122/) (2024)
- [DTG : Diffusion-based Trajectory Generation for Mapless Global Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09900/) (2024)
- [MEM: Multi-Modal Elevation Mapping for Robotics and Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.16818/) (2023)
- [BehAV: Behavioral Rule Guided Autonomy Using VLMs for Robot Navigation in Outdoor Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.16484/) (2024)
- [MTG: Mapless Trajectory Generator with Traversability Coverage for Outdoor Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.08214/) (2023)
- [Robot Navigation Using Physically Grounded Vision-Language Models in Outdoor Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.20445/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present Splatblox, a real-time system for autonomous navigation in outdoor environments with dense vegetation, irregular obstacles, and complex terrain. Our method fuses segmented RGB images and LiDAR point clouds using Gaussian Splatting to construct a traversability-aware Euclidean Signed Distance Field (ESDF) that jointly encodes geometry and semantics. Updated online, this field enables semantic reasoning to distinguish traversable vegetation (e.g., tall grass) from rigid obstacles (e.g., trees), while LiDAR ensures 360-degree geometric coverage for extended planning horizons. We validate Splatblox on a quadruped robot and demonstrate transfer to a wheeled platform. In field trials across vegetation-rich scenarios, it outperforms state-of-the-art methods with over 50% higher success rate, 40% fewer freezing incidents, 5% shorter paths, and up to 13% faster time to goal, while supporting long-range missions up to 100 meters. Experiment videos and more details can be found on our project page: https://splatblox.github.io