Voxel-Based Navigation: A Systematic Review of Techniques, Applications, and Challenges

In recent years, navigation has attracted widespread attention across various fields, such as geomatics, robotics, photogrammetry, and transportation. Modeling the navigation environment is a key step in building successful navigation services. While traditional navigation systems have relied solely on 2D data, advancements in 3D sensing technology have made more 3D data available, enabling more realistic environmental modeling. This paper primarily focuses on voxel-based navigation and reviews the existing literature that covers various aspects of using voxel data or models to support navigation. The paper first discusses key technologies related to voxel-based navigation, including voxel-based modeling, voxel segmentation, voxel-based analysis, and voxel storage and management. It then distinguishes and discusses indoor and outdoor navigation based on the application scenarios. Additionally, various issues related to voxel-based navigation are addressed. Finally, the paper presents several potential research opportunities that may be useful for researchers or companies in developing more advanced navigation systems for pedestrians, robots, and vehicles.