Cognitive navigation

Currently, new-generation artificial intelligence technologies, such as foundation models and embodied intelligence, are developing rapidly, significantly expanding the connotation and extension of navigation technology. Cognitive navigation, by interacting with the environment, achieves learning, growth, and evolution. It represents a new navigation paradigm formed by the deep integration of cognitive science, navigation technology, artificial intelligence, and real-world application scenarios. The core of cognitive navigation lies in the growth and evolution of cognitive abilities under spatiotemporal coupling, with its technological essence reflected in the four dimensions of “ability-interpretability-generalizability-evolvability”, forming an adaptive navigation architecture based on the ternary environment-task-platform coupling. First, this review summarizes the history and current state of navigation technology, explores the foundations of cognitive navigation in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, and emphasizes the need to advance navigation technology into the cognitive space. Then it provides a detailed introduction to the framework of cognitive navigation along with the latest advances in perception, decision, and execution. Finally, the review explores the cognitive navigation paradigm based on the mechanism “ability-interpretability-generalizability-evolvability”, emphasizing the need for further research on next-generation cognitive navigation technologies that integrate stable perception, intelligent decision, and adaptive execution, with the aim of achieving high efficiency, strong versatility, and self-evolving capabilities for “one brain, multiple forms” and “one machine, multiple uses”.