UAV-UGV Cooperative Perception for Low-altitude Transportation: A Review

With the rapid rise of the low-altitude economy and the advancement of intelligent transportation, low-altitude transportation, an emerging air-ground integrated transportation system, has placed higher demands on environmental perception, communication, and computing capabilities. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive overview of the critical technologies and future development trends in UAV-UGV cooperative perception for low-altitude transportation. We systematically review three fundamental supporting technologies for cooperative perception: Perception methods based on LiDAR, vision, and multi-sensor fusion; communication technologies such as C-V2X, 5G, and Wi-Fi; and edge computing architectures integrating end-edge-cloud cooperation. Based on this foundation, we further summarize recent research progress in critical technology areas including cooperative perception information fusion, perception information compression and transmission, cooperative networking, communication security, and resource allocation. Finally, we analyze the challenges faced by UAV-UGV cooperative perception systems, particularly in optimizing perception models and enabling future application scenarios, and exploring future development trends to guide both academic exploration and practical implementation of multi-agent cooperative perception systems in low-altitude transportation.