Mapping company HERE announced a new service for enhancing automated driving features for vehicles. Its new cloud-based mapping service makes drivers feel their car is making the right decisions when driving autonomously.
This mapping service owned by Daimler, Audi and BMW has announced a new cloud-based mapping service to enhance the Advanced Driver Assistance System for the aforementioned carmakers, as well as a feature update for autonomous driving. The cloud-based mapping service could also form a mapping system core for all-autonomous vehicles in the future.
High-precision maps form the basis of virtually all autonomous cars' advanced navigational system. As per NVidia, automated driving features are made possible on highways and freeways because of the on-board sensors. With old GPS maps, drivers cannot plan ahead as they do not have real-time maps and car sensors can only reach a limited distance.
Interestingly, HERE's HD Live Map solution is cloud based. It includes information on permanent infrastructures, how many lanes a certain road has, analytical information about how fast the cars are on a certain road and data about traffic and construction.
HERE Automotive Vice President Floris van de Klashorst said that as society moves towards higher vehicle automation levels, drivers need to feel that their vehicles are making right decisions on their behalf. When it comes to trusting autonomous cars, having a consistent real-time awareness of far and near road conditions is critical. With HERE's high-definition cloud-based Live Map, the company believes that it will become the automotive industry's most clever sensor.
As HERE's service is based on the cloud, a vehicle with this service installed can detect speed limit changes through its sensors. The service then sends this data to the cloud, as well as to all other vehicles in the area that have this service installed on board. Another noteworthy feature is the adaptive cruise control. It updates the map when a lane is closed so that other cars can change lanes ahead of time. All this information is now useful for cars that have the ADAS system on board. However, HERE has been working with other manufacturers to test its Live Map system for fully autonomous vehicles.
