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posted by on Tuesday March 14 2017, @06:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the turn-left-in-173-picometers dept.

The weight of the automotive and tech industries is fully behind the move toward self-driving cars. Cars with "limited autonomy"—i.e., the ability to drive themselves under certain conditions (level 3) or within certain geofenced locations (level 4)—should be on our roads within the next five years.

But a completely autonomous vehicle—capable of driving anywhere, any time, with human input limited to telling it just a destination—remains a more distant goal. To make that happen, cars are going to need to know exactly where they are in the world with far greater precision than currently possible with technology like GPS. And that means new maps that are far more accurate than anything you could buy at the next gas station—not that a human would be able to read them anyway.

Fully aware of this need, car makers like BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and Ford have been voting with their wallets. They're investing in companies like Here and Civil Maps that are building the platforms and gathering the data required. The end result will be a high-definition 3D map of our road networks—and everything within a few meters of them—that's constantly updated by vehicles as they drive along.

Here started work building HD maps back in 2013, according to Sanjay Sood, the company's VP for highly automated driving. "The notion of an HD map was created during a joint project with Here and Daimler for the 'Birth of Benz' drive, and we developed a core technology and HD map that was created as a research prototype in order to facilitate the functioning of that car driving through the German countryside," he told Ars. "When it comes to automated driving, the map becomes another sensor that helps the automated vehicle make decisions."

Source: ArsTechnica


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  • (Score: 2) by richtopia on Tuesday March 14 2017, @07:18PM (1 child)

    by richtopia (3160) on Tuesday March 14 2017, @07:18PM (#479082) Homepage Journal

    Yes, and I would be willing to bet the manufacturers design their system with this mentality also. However accurate maps are another level of navigation, and ensuring the map agrees with what the sensors are seeing validates the correct path.

    The article deals with how companies are mapping roads with dedicated vehicles currently. However, this is only step one. The equipment used for mapping is very similar to what is used for self driving vehicles, so intelligent vehicles will be able to reinforce the map that already exists, and make dynamic changes in the future. Instead of a fleet of dedicated vehicles on the company dime, all of the cars on the road will be able to provide data.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 14 2017, @08:46PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 14 2017, @08:46PM (#479127)

    Along the lines of sharing data, there is some interest in self-driving cars platooning (drafting, tailgating) on the freeway to get better fuel mileage. But you wouldn't want to join a platoon where one car had a bad tire that might go flat. So the next step is for all the cars to share around their tire pressures and temperatures (low pressure & hot are more likely to fail). And maybe more "health data" on the tires once tires come with more advanced sensors, for example, tread depth or out-of-balance.

    So many attack surfaces....