# Generative Spectrum Cartography: Unified Reconstruction and Active Sensing via Diffusion Models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.20108 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.20108/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Inverse problems and image restoration, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 19 of its 45 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 23 Dec 2025.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Inverse problems and image restoration](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/inverse-problems-and-image-restoration/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 19 of 19)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Deep Features as a Perceptual Metric](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1801.03924/) (2018)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Flow Matching for Generative Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.02747/) (2022)
- [Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.05600/) (2019)
- [Improved Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.09672/) (2021)
- [Flow Straight and Fast: Learning to Generate and Transfer Data with Rectified Flow](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.03003/) (2022)
- [Diffusion Posterior Sampling for General Noisy Inverse Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14687/) (2022)
- [Denoising Diffusion Restoration Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.11793/) (2022)
- [Zero-Shot Image Restoration Using Denoising Diffusion Null-Space Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2212.00490/) (2022)
- [Improving Diffusion Inverse Problem Solving with Decoupled Noise Annealing](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.01521/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Model Based Posterior Sampling for Noisy Linear Inverse Problems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.12343/) (2022)
- [RadioDiff: An Effective Generative Diffusion Model for Sampling-Free Dynamic Radio Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.08593/) (2024)
- [Spectrum Cartography via Coupled Block-Term Tensor Decomposition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.12468/) (2019)
- [Quantized Compressed Sensing with Score-based Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.13006/) (2022)
- [Deep Spectrum Cartography: Completing Radio Map Tensors Using Learned Neural Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.00177/) (2021)
- [QCM-SGM+: Improved Quantized Compressed Sensing With Score-Based Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.00919/) (2023)
- [Domain-Factored Untrained Deep Prior for Spectrum Cartography](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.14116/) (2025)

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [GPARA: Graph-Posterior-Aligned Refinement and Active Acquisition for Grounding Diffusion Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.34172/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

High-fidelity spectrum cartography is important for spectrum monitoring and wireless situational awareness, especially in satellite-based wide-area sensing scenarios where measurements are sparse, noisy, and often low-bit quantized. In such settings, two coupled challenges arise: accurate reconstruction from severely incomplete measurements and efficient allocation of additional sensing resources under a limited sensing budget. Existing methods usually address these problems separately, and, for reconstruction, they often rely on priors that are insufficiently expressive under sparse and quantized measurements. This paper proposes Generative Spectrum Cartography (GSC), a diffusion-based posterior inference framework for spectrum cartography with uncertainty-aware active sensing. Specifically, spectrum map recovery is formulated as a Bayesian inverse problem under a learned diffusion model prior, and closed-form posterior mean updates are derived for both linear and quantized measurement models. By embedding these updates into the reverse diffusion process, GSC enables gradient-free and measurement-consistent posterior sampling without relying on computationally costly likelihood-gradient guidance. The resulting posterior samples are further used to estimate spatial uncertainty and to guide diversity-aware selection of additional measurement locations for active sensing. Experiments on simulated electromagnetic maps and a high-fidelity simulated satellite monitoring scenario show that GSC achieves higher PSNR, lower LPIPS, and more efficient sensing than representative baseline methods under sparse, noisy, and low-bit quantized measurements.