A method is provided for creating at least one map of vehicle surroundings with the aid of a control unit. It is checked based on a comparison between received measured data and stored or received map data, whether first features, for example semantic features, are present and complete. First features available in a vehicle surroundings are extracted from the received measured data if no or incomplete map data are present. It is checked whether a localization is possible within the vehicle surroundings with the aid of the first semantic features. If a localization is imprecise or not possible with the aid of the ascertained first features, second features are extracted from the received measured data. A digital map of vehicle surroundings is created based on the ascertained first features and/or the second features. Furthermore, a control unit, a computer program as well as a machine-readable memory medium are provided.

Described herein are methods of generating learning data to facilitate de-biasing the labeled location of an object of interest within an image. Methods may include: receiving sensor data, where the sensor data is a first image; determining reference corner locations of an object in the first image using image processing; generating observed corner locations of the object in the first image from the determined reference corner locations; generating a bias transformation based, at least in part, on a difference between the reference corner locations and the observed corner locations of the object in the first image; receiving sensor data from another image sensor of a second image; receiving observed corner locations of an object in the second image from a user; and applying the bias transformation to the observed corner locations of the object in the second image to generate de-biased corners for the object in the second image.

A method and control system for generating and updating digital maps using a plurality of passages along a road portion by at least one road vehicle is provided. The method comprises obtaining positioning data and sensor data of each passage from the at least one road vehicle. Further, the method comprises forming a sub-map representation of the surrounding environment at each obtained longitudinal position based on the obtained sensor data, and estimating a longitudinal error for each obtained longitudinal position within each segment. Furthermore, the method comprises determining a new plurality of longitudinal positions of each road vehicle for each passage by applying the estimated longitudinal error on each corresponding obtained longitudinal position, and applying the determined new plurality of longitudinal positions on associated sensor data in order to generate a first layer of a map representation of the surrounding environment along the road portion.

Systems and methods for updating navigational maps based using at least one sensor are provided. In one aspect, a control system for an autonomous vehicle, includes a processor and a computer-readable memory configured to cause the processor to: receive output from at least one sensor located on the autonomous vehicle indicative of a driving environment of the autonomous vehicle, retrieve a navigational map used for driving the autonomous vehicle, and detect one or more inconsistencies between the output of the at least one sensor and the navigational map. The computer-readable memory is further configured to cause the processor to: in response to detecting the one or more inconsistencies, trigger mapping of the driving environment based on the output of the at least one sensor, update the navigational map based on the mapped driving environment, and drive the autonomous vehicle using the updated navigational map.

A mobile robot is configured to navigate on a sidewalk and deliver a delivery to a predetermined location. The robot has a body and an enclosed space within the body for storing the delivery during transit. At least two cameras are mounted on the robot body and are adapted to take visual images of an operating area. A processing component is adapted to extract straight lines from the visual images taken by the cameras and generate map data based at least partially on the images. A communication component is adapted to send and receive image and/or map data. A mapping system includes at least two such mobile robots, with the communication component of each robot adapted to send and receive image data and/or map data to the other robot. A method involves operating such a mobile robot in an area of interest in which deliveries are to be made.

An apparatus for updating a map detects a feature in an area around a vehicle traveling on a road from situation data representing the situation around the vehicle, and updates a lane network representing a connection relationship between lanes included in road sections into which the road is divided. The lane network is stored in a storage unit and updated to match a connection relationship between lanes indicated by the detected feature.

The present disclosure provides a method and apparatus for automatically producing map data. The method includes: performing track rectification on crowdsourcing tracks based on corresponding standard tracks, and locating each map element included, based on depth information of track point images included in the rectified crowdsourcing tracks; comparing a latest map element obtained based on the rectified crowdsourcing tracks locating and an old map element at a corresponding locating position using a pre-built entity semantic map; determining, in response to a change in the latest map element compared to the old map element, a target processing method according to a processing standard of a changed map element pre-abstracted from a map element update specification; and processing the latest map element according to the target processing method to obtain a processed latest map.

An apparatus for updating a map detects the positions of reference points corresponding to a feature on a road being traveled by a vehicle from surrounding data representing features around the vehicle, and updates probability distributions associated with the respective reference points so that the probabilities of existence of the reference points at the detected positions of the reference points increase. Each of the probability distributions indicates the probability of existence of the corresponding reference point as a function of position.

Methods and systems for distributed detection of road conditions and damage are described. In one embodiment, a method for distributed detection of road conditions and damage is provided. The method includes receiving, from one or more mobile devices, a plurality of reports of anomalies associated with roads in a geographic area. The method also includes storing the received reports of anomalies in a database and comparing each report of an anomaly to stored reports of previous anomalies in the database. The method further includes determining whether each report of an anomaly indicates road damage or a temporary problem. The method includes generating a prioritized list of locations of anomalies associated with one or more roads that have been determined to have road damage that needs maintenance and/or repair.

A computer-implemented method may include monitoring an age of a tile of a map, where the map includes multiple tiles including the tile. The method may also include, based on the age exceeding a threshold age, determining that the tile of the map is to be updated, and receiving a location indicator from a vehicle. The method may additionally include transmitting an update message to a vehicle traversing a track within the tile as indicated by the location indicator, where the update message includes instructions to cause the vehicle to gather and submit sensor data to a computing system. The method may also include receiving the sensor data from the vehicle, and updating the tile of the map based on the received sensor data.