The New York Times ran a good story about the importance of maps to self-driving cars, and the relatively few companies that build them.
This is an often-overlooked chokepoint in the self-driving car ecosystem.
Digital maps ease the burden by helping give foresight to a car’s computers, and adding redundancy to the car’s understanding of the situation it faces, said Civil Maps’ chief executive, Sravan Puttagunta. Radar and cameras cannot always recognize a stop sign if pedestrians are standing in the way or the sign has been knocked down, he explained.
“But if the map knows there is a stop sign ahead, then the sensors just need to confirm it,” Mr. Puttagunta said. “Then the load on the sensors and processor is much lower.”
Read the whole thing.
David Silver 