A method and apparatus are provided for determining whether a driving environment has changed relative to previously stored information about the driving environment. The apparatus may include an autonomous driving computer system configured to detect one or more vehicles in the driving environment, and determine corresponding trajectories for those detected vehicles. The autonomous driving computer system may then compare the determined trajectories to an expected trajectory of a hypothetical vehicle in the driving environment. Based on the comparison, the autonomous driving computer system may determine whether the driving environment has changed and/or a probability that the driving environment has changed, relative to the previously stored information about the driving environment.

A method of enhancing positioning of a moving vehicle based on visual identification of visual objects, comprising obtaining from a location sensor a global positioning and a movement vector of a moving vehicle, capturing one or more images using one or more imaging devices mounted on the moving vehicle to depict at least partial view of a surroundings of the moving vehicle, analyzing the image(s) to identify one or more visual objects having a known geographical position obtained according to the global positioning from a visual data record associated with a navigation map, analyzing the image(s) to calculate a relative positioning of the moving vehicle with respect to the identified visual object(s), calculating an enhanced positioning of the moving vehicle based on the relative positioning and applying the enhanced positioning to a navigation system of the moving vehicle.

A system for vehicle navigation is provided. The system includes at least one processing circuitry programmed to receive via a data interface one or more images captured by one or more cameras representative of an environment of a vehicle, identify, based on analysis of the one or more images, at least one direction of at least one directional arrow on a road surface in the one or more images, determine a direction of travel for the vehicle based on the at least one direction of the at least one directional arrow on the road surface, determine at least one navigational action for the vehicle based on the determined direction of travel for the vehicle, and cause one or more actuator systems of the vehicle to implement the determined at least one navigational action for the vehicle.

A vehicle position attitude calculation apparatus includes: a road structure recognition portion that acquires information, calculate a road structure shape, calculate a relative road structure lateral position, and calculate a relative road structure yaw angle; a storage portion that stores the road structure shape, the relative road structure lateral position, and the relative road structure yaw angle, an autonomous navigation portion that calculates a relative trajectory; a virtual road structure recognition portion that calculates a virtual relative road structure lateral position and a virtual relative road structure yaw angle; and an output switching portion that outputs the relative road structure lateral position and the relative road structure yaw angle, while the road structure recognition portion can recognize the road structure, and output the virtual relative road structure lateral position and the virtual relative road structure yaw angle, while the road structure recognition portion cannot recognize the road structure.

The invention is provided with: a turning determination unit 13 and an image reproducing unit 14. The turning determination unit 13 determines a section in which an automobile travels with turning, not travels straight, based on road-route information regarding a traveling route and a road on the traveling route. The image reproducing unit 14 displays a selected-virtual space image that is selected in advance in a straight section in which the automobile travels straight, and displays a turning-virtual space image for a view field turning in accordance with a turning pattern determined by a road shape and a traveling direction in a turning section, in the turning section in which the automobile travels with turning. When the automobile turns, a contradiction that occurs between information obtained by the brain through an experience of a user and information obtained by the brain through that the user views the turning-virtual space image displayed on an HMD 200 is reduced, and thus an occurrence that the autonomic nerves cause an abnormal phenomenon is suppressed.

This application discloses a lane determining method performed at a computing device. The computing device obtains image information of a road surface image collected by a vehicle; identifies first lane information of at least one first lane of the road surface from the image information, the first lane information including a location relationship between a travelling lane in which the vehicle is located in the road surface and the at least one first lane, and a feature of the first lane; performs feature matching between the feature of the at least one first lane and a feature of at least one second lane in a map in which the road surface is located, the feature of the at least one second lane obtained from the map; and determines a target lane of the vehicle in the map corresponding to the travelling lane in the map in accordance with the feature matching result.

An information processing device includes an information acquisition unit to acquire feature measurement information indicating locations of features including a road having a boundary and trajectory information indicating a trajectory along the road; a candidate location information generation unit to generate candidate location information indicating locations of candidate elements for the boundary, based on the feature measurement information acquired by the information acquisition unit; a selection unit to select candidate elements from among the candidate elements indicated by the candidate location information generated by the candidate location information generation unit, based on the trajectory information acquired by the information acquisition unit; and a boundary location information generation unit to generate boundary location information indicating determined locations of the boundary, using the candidate elements selected by the selection unit.

In a probe data evaluation apparatus, probe data are collected from a vehicle. Provisional map data are generated based on the collected probe data. The generated provisional map data are compared with reference map data, to provide a comparison result. Whether or not to adopt the collected probe data is determined based on the comparison result.

An information processing device (100) includes a map information generation unit (11) and a usage amount calculation unit (12). The map information generation unit (11) generates map information by using measurement information including a plurality of types of information measured by a measurement device (300) which measures information on features and is mounted on a measurement vehicle (310). The usage amount calculation unit (12) calculates a usage amount of the map information generation unit (11) used for generating the map information by using at least one of the plurality of types of information included in measurement information.

Methods, systems, and techniques for validating road intersections are presented. The method includes receiving annotated intersection data that, for each lane of a particular candidate intersection, indicates one or more attributes of the lane; processing the annotated intersection data to generate an intersection fingerprint for the particular candidate intersection that is sensitive to a topological structure of the lanes of the particular candidate intersection and is invariant to a geometry of the lanes of the particular candidate intersection; designating the particular candidate intersection as validated without performing the one or more quality control processes based at least on the intersection fingerprint; and storing a representation of the particular candidate intersection in the roadgraph.