Online Knowledge Integration for 3D Semantic Mapping: A Survey
It addresses the problem of loosely integrated representations in semantic mapping for robotics, but it is incremental as it surveys existing developments rather than proposing new methods.
This survey reviews recent advances in integrating prior knowledge, such as knowledge graphs and language models, into 3D semantic mapping for robots, enabling novel applications by tightly coupling geometric and knowledge representations.
Semantic mapping is a key component of robots operating in and interacting with objects in structured environments. Traditionally, geometric and knowledge representations within a semantic map have only been loosely integrated. However, recent advances in deep learning now allow full integration of prior knowledge, represented as knowledge graphs or language concepts, into sensor data processing and semantic mapping pipelines. Semantic scene graphs and language models enable modern semantic mapping approaches to incorporate graph-based prior knowledge or to leverage the rich information in human language both during and after the mapping process. This has sparked substantial advances in semantic mapping, leading to previously impossible novel applications. This survey reviews these recent developments comprehensively, with a focus on online integration of knowledge into semantic mapping. We specifically focus on methods using semantic scene graphs for integrating symbolic prior knowledge and language models for respective capture of implicit common-sense knowledge and natural language concepts