A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided to automatically detect changes in width of road segments in real-time or near real-time using probe data, such as probe data collected from vehicle and/or mobile devices traveling along a road segment. Probe data collected in real-time or near real-time is partitioned in order to identify width-defining portions of the probe data. The width-defining portions may be representative of the laterally-extreme lanes of the road segment, such as the left-most lane and the right-most lane. The width-defining portions are compared to corresponding width-defining portions of historical probe data to determine measures indicative of whether a road segment has expanded or narrowed. Indications of detected segment width changes may be provided to drivers and/or other systems or users. For example, map data for the road segment may be updated to reflect a detected width expansion or narrowing of the road segment.

A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided to automatically detect changes in width of road segments in real-time or near real-time using probe data, such as probe data collected from vehicle and/or mobile devices traveling along a road segment. Probe data collected in real-time or near real-time is partitioned in order to identify width-defining portions of the probe data. The width-defining portions may be representative of the laterally-extreme lanes of the road segment, such as the left-most lane and the right-most lane. The width-defining portions are compared to corresponding width-defining portions of historical probe data to determine measures indicative of whether a road segment has expanded or narrowed. Indications of detected segment width changes may be provided to drivers and/or other systems or users. For example, map data for the road segment may be updated to reflect a detected width expansion or narrowing of the road segment.

Systems and methods navigate a vehicle by determining a free space region in which the vehicle can travel. In one implementation, a system may include at least one processor programmed to receive from an image capture device, a plurality of images associated with the environment of a vehicle, analyze at least one of the plurality of images to identify a first free space boundary on a driver side of the vehicle and extending forward of the vehicle, a second free space boundary on a passenger side of the vehicle and extending forward of the vehicle, and a forward free space boundary forward of the vehicle and extending between the first free space boundary and the second free space boundary. The first free space boundary, the second free space boundary, and the forward free space boundary may define a free space region forward of the vehicle. The at least one processor of the system may be further programmed to determine a navigational path for the vehicle through the free space region and cause the vehicle to travel on at least a portion of the determined navigational path within the free space region forward of the vehicle.

A road shape information generator is provided. The road shape information generator includes a sensor value obtainer that obtains a sensor value acting, when a vehicle travels, on the vehicle, a road shape information generator that generates information about a road shape as road shape information based on the sensor value obtained by the sensor value obtainer, and a storage controller that stores, in a road shape information storage, the road shape information generated by the road shape information generator.

The present application discloses a method and an apparatus for generating a high precision map. According to an embodiment, the method comprises: acquiring three-dimensional (3D) laser point cloud data and information related to a grid map for generating the high precision map; determining position information of each piece of the 3D laser point data of the 3D laser point cloud data in the grid map; rendering each pixel point in the grid map, by using the reflection value of corresponding 3D laser point data of the 3D laser point cloud data, in order to generate each of grid images in the grid map; identifying, by using a machine learning algorithm, traffic information of each of the grid images in the grid map; clustering the traffic information of each of the grid images in the grid map to obtain the traffic information of the grid map; and loading the traffic information of the grid map into the grid map to generate the high precision map. The embodiment implements the generating of a high precision map with a high precision and a plurality of dimensions.

A hybrid approach for using reference frames is presented in which a series of anchor frames is used, effectively resetting a global frame upon a trigger event. With each new anchor frame, parameter values for lane boundary estimates (known as lane boundary states) can be recalculated with respect to the new anchor frame. Triggering events may a based on a length of time, distance traveled, and/or an uncertainty value.

A map data storage method for acquiring map data content used in a subject vehicle and storing the map data content in a common database by using a controller is provided. This method includes converting a format of the acquired map data content to a predetermined format that can be used in the subject vehicle, storing the map data content converted into the predetermined format in the common database, acquiring update information regarding the map data content stored in the common database, and editing the map data content in the predetermined format stored in the common database on the basis of the acquired update information.

Method and device for real-time error bounded and relay bounded map matching. The method for map matching comprises of modelling each road arc as a hidden state and each location measurement as an observation emitted by the hidden state using a Hidden Markov Model, decoding each road arc and each location measurement using a Viterbi algorithm and outputting a matching road arc, wherein the outputting is delayed by a delay time in response to an optimal trade-off between selection accuracy and selection latency.

A method, apparatus and computer program product are provided to disambiguate probe points within an ambiguous probe regions to permit more reliable association with a road segment. In regards to a method, probe trajectory identifiers (IDs) of probe points along at least a portion of the first and second branches that lead away from an ambiguous probe region are separately identified and form first and second sets of probe trajectory IDs, respectively. For the ambiguous probe region, the probe trajectory IDs of probe points along a third branch that leads toward the ambiguous probe region are identified and form a third set of probe trajectory IDs. The method also includes classifying probe trajectory IDs from the third set as being associated with the first branch or the second branch in an instance in which the probe trajectory IDs are additionally included in the first set or the second set, respectively.

A method for generating navigation data for a vehicle using a vehicle and a navigation device, said vehicle comprising a set of sensors, said method comprising the steps of: travelling along a road, detecting at least one landmark, determining if said at least one landmark has a shape correlating to the main direction of said road. Approving the at least one landmark as a landmark for landmark navigation or approving an associated section of the road for landmark navigation.