2025/01/31 by Aaron Hao Tan, Angus Fung, Tan, Aaron Hao +5 · 5 citations
Computer Science · Engineering · #Advanced Image and Video Retrieval Techniques #Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (cs.CV) #FOS: Computer and information sciences #Robotic Path Planning Algorithms #Robotics (cs.RO) #Robotics and Automated Systems
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2502.00114
openalex publication_date 2025/01/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Hand-drawn maps can be used to convey navigation instructions between humans and robots in a natural and efficient manner. However, these maps can often contain inaccuracies such as scale distortions and missing landmarks which present challenges for mobile robot navigation. This paper introduces a novel Hand-drawn Map Navigation (HAM-Nav) architecture that leverages pre-trained vision language models (VLMs) for robot navigation across diverse environments, hand-drawing styles, and robot embodiments, even in the presence of map inaccuracies. HAM-Nav integrates a unique Selective Visual Association Prompting approach for topological map-based position estimation and navigation planning as well as a Predictive Navigation Plan Parser to infer missing landmarks. Extensive experiments were conducted in photorealistic simulated environments, using both wheeled and legged robots, demonstrating the effectiveness of HAM-Nav in terms of navigation success rates and Success weighted by Path Length. Furthermore, a user study in real-world environments highlighted the practical utility of hand-drawn maps for robot navigation as well as successful navigation outcomes compared against a non-hand-drawn map approach.