Tag: #HERE #Maps #Nokia

HERE to lead vehicle hazard warning pilot in Finland. #HERE #Maps #Nokia

The project is the first to implement system in accordance with EU ITS directive

HERE, a leader in mapping, navigation and location services, has been selected by Finnish traffic agencies to lead a pilot project to enable vehicles to communicate safety hazards to others on the road.

The pilot, which will start in 2016, intends to assess the capability of current and emerging mobile network and location cloud technologies in supporting the timely communication of critical safety information, such as black ice or an animal on the road, sudden traffic build-up, or an accident.

FinlandPilot-1

In this pilot, to test the capability of the proposed technology architecture, drivers will voluntarily share notifications about safety hazards and changing road conditions initially via a smartphone. The aim, however, is that this architecture would later also support low-latency communication, via a cloud, of data generated by a vehicle’s on-board sensors and the surrounding road infrastructure to other vehicles and smart devices on the road.

According to a recent forecast from automotive technology research firm SBD, by 2020 there will be some 33 million vehicles sold annually with built-in connectivity, generating more than 163 million terabytes of data each year via their on-board cameras and sensors. When shared across the road network using 4G/LTE and future 5G network technologies, these data could be utilized by vehicles to give them an awareness of road conditions beyond the reach of their sensors, and thus enable the driver or the vehicle itself to better plan driving maneuvers. 5G technology raises the prospect of road hazard warnings being communicated via the cloud to relevant vehicles in a fraction of a second.

HERE is tasked by the Finnish Transport Agency (FTA) and Trafi, the Finnish Transport Safety Agency, to lead the pilot, called Coop, and will work together with traffic information management service company Infotripla in implementing it. The project will be the first to implement a road hazard warning messaging system as described in the Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) Directive set out by the EU. This particular pilot does not require the deployment of any additional roadside infrastructure, such as DSRC (Dedicated Short Range Communications) equipment, although HERE is pursuing an agnostic approach with its technologies that will allow for connections with other infrastructure if required.

George Filley, who heads HERE’s Digital Transportation Infrastructure program, said: “With this project, we will explore how technology within our reach today could make driving safer as cars get connected. There will be enormous amounts of data generated by a car’s on-board sensors that can be collected, analyzed and shared with others on the road. An important piece of the puzzle is to figure out how to provide relevant, low-latency information to the right people at the right time, and that is a problem we believe we can solve.

Alain Dunoyer, Head of the Safe Car division of SBD, the automotive technology research firm, said: “The technology exists to identify road hazards with increasing levels of accuracy – it is great to see Finland partnering with a technology leader like HERE to take the next step of ensuring this information reaches a broader population of drivers who will benefit from this life-saving information the most.”

The first phase of the pilot will focus on ensuring the technical maturity of the system. The second phase begins in the first half of 2016 on the E18 highway, the main road between Helsinki and Turku, as well as the Ring I and Ring III highways in the Greater Helsinki area, with initially up to 1,000 drivers expected to take part. The pilot phase is expected to complete by the end of 2017.

HERE has been developing location cloud technology for several years, and currently provides content and services via the cloud – including maps, routing and real-time traffic information – to automotive and Internet companies as well as government transportation agencies.

In a related effort, HERE is developing next generation high definition (HD) and live maps to power a new class of driver experiences globally, including deployment in highly automated vehicles in 2018. To help accelerate the deployment of a live map for vehicles, HERE last weekpublished an interface specification that defines how sensor data gathered by vehicles on the road can be ingested by a cloud. HERE intends for this interface specification to become a standardized way for vehicles to send to the cloud the rich variety of data gathered by their on-board sensors. With a standard interface specification, the data generated would be analogous regardless of vehicle manufacturer and could be pooled, processed and analyzed quickly to create an enhanced view of road and traffic conditions.

For more information on this announcement, see the HERE 360 blog and the FTA press release.

HERE takes step to accelerate development of live map for cars. #Nokia #HERE #Cars

HERE maps have been in the news pretty much of late and its all good news and HERE fans like good news,HERE is now taking steps to accelerate development of live maps for cars which sounds pretty cool.

HERE, a leader in mapping, navigation and location experiences, has published an interface specification that defines how sensor data gathered by vehicles on the road can be ingested by a cloud. The aim of this step is to support the automotive industry in accelerating the deployment of technologies that improve road safety and ease traffic congestion, such as connected Electronic Horizon and automated driving.

FULL PRESS RELEASE

According to a recent forecast from automotive technology research firm SBD, by 2020 there will be some 33 million vehicles sold annually with built-in connectivity, generating more than 163 million terabytes of data each year via their dozens of on-board cameras and sensor technologies. When shared across the road network, this data can be utilized by vehicles to give them an awareness of road conditions beyond the reach of their sensors, and thus enable the driver or the vehicle itself to better plan driving maneuvers. In order to be efficiently useable, the data shared should be intelligible to other vehicles, and thus it ideally should pass through the cloud in a standard format.

In view of that need, HERE, which is developing location cloud technology for automated vehicles, has published a sensor data ingestion interface specification for the automotive industry to utilize. HERE intends for this interface specification, made available through a creative commons license, to become a standardized way for vehicles to send to the cloud the rich variety of data gathered by their on-board sensors. With a standard interface specification, the data generated would be analogous regardless of vehicle manufacturer and could be pooled, processed and analyzed quickly to create a detailed live view of road and traffic conditions.

HERE is already discussing the interface specification with certain leading automakers, and intends to invite other industry peers to discuss the specification this summer. More information about the interface specification can be accessed on theAutomotive section of the HERE website.

“Your car generates a wealth of data about road and traffic conditions which will be very helpful to other cars driving behind you,” said Dietmar Rabel, who heads product management for the automated driving program at HERE. “By uniting around a single data specification, we can improve our collective abilities to gain a better overall understanding from the data collected. It will mean fewer accidents and less time spent in traffic. It also moves the industry closer to the goal of cars that can drive themselves.”

The data generated from sensors on board modern vehicles can be used to warn others of possible dangers, including icy roads or a spill, sudden braking or traffic build up, an accident, or an animal or object on the road. Data can also be used to verify and enhance map data and attributes, provide warnings of poor road infrastructure like potholes as well as construction. With cloud technology this data can also be utilized for new dynamic and personalized services.

The HERE location platform applies data fusion and crowdsourcing for the extremely challenging task of deriving useful information from a huge volume of vehicle sensor data. The platform ensures the robustness of data it sources to enable a car to effectively ‘see around the corner’ and avoid an accident. Achieving the highest possible confidence level requires continuous near real-time processing of large streams of very diverse data which are then fused with map, traffic, incident, weather and other data. For information to become actionable and made known to other vehicles on the road, it would typically have to evolve through multiple layers of information extraction hierarchy. HERE has already implemented a next generation engine for real-time traffic and in doing so has gained significant expertise to apply similar technology for road events relevant to highly automated driving.

As is the case with its other products and services, HERE has built data anonymization into its sensor data ingestion interface specification, meaning that the location data generated by vehicles are anonymous unless drivers opt-in to sharing personal identifier information in order to benefit from additional personalized services.

To know more about the vision of HERE for autonomous cars and read the full interview with Dietmar Rabel, visit HERE 360.