Abstract: Autonomy is the future development trend of unmanned platforms, and machine map is an important tool for unmanned platforms to realize autonomous spatial cognition. Firstly, the characteristics of machine maps are analyzed and summarized in this paper.Then, from the perspective of maps and their role in people's geospatial cognition, the mode of action of machine maps in the spatial cognition of unmanned platforms is analyzed.Finally, according to the application mode of machine maps, the design principles of machine maps are sorted out, which can provide reference for the in-depth study of machine maps.

Key words: machine map, unmanned autonomous platform, data model, spatial cognition