System and method for verifying map data for a vehicle

• US 9,494,438 B1
• Filed: 12/15/2015
• Issued: 11/15/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 12/15/2015
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Original Assignee: Honda Motor Co., Ltd. (Honda Motor Company)
• Inventors: Ichinokawa, Junpei
• Primary Examiner(s): Beaulieu, Yonel
• Application Number:
  US14/969,288
• Time in Patent Office: 336 Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/30 Map- or contour-matching
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3815 Road data
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3848 Data obtained from both position sensors and additional sensors
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 2207/30256 Lane; Road marking
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 7/73 using feature-based methods
• CPC Class Codes: G06V 20/588 Recognition of the road, e.g. of lane markings; Recognition of the vehicle driving pattern in relation to the road

Abstract

A method and system for verifying map data for a vehicle that include receiving locational coordinate data related to a roadway from a navigation system and image data pertaining to the roadway from a vehicle camera system. The method and system also include determining map data and determining a lane coordinate measurement between a center point of a traveling lane and a lane on the roadway adjacent to the traveling lane based on the map data. The method and system further include determining a lane image measurement that includes a measurement between a center portion of the vehicle and a right lane boundary of the traveling lane and the center portion of the vehicle and a left lane boundary of the traveling lane based on the image data. The method and system also include verifying the map data based on the lane coordinate measurement and the lane image measurement.

Claims

1. A method for verifying map data for a vehicle, comprising:

receiving locational coordinate data related to a roadway on which the vehicle is traveling from a navigation system and image data pertaining to the roadway on which the vehicle is traveling from a vehicle camera system;

determining map data associated with the roadway on which the vehicle is traveling based on the locational coordinate data;

determining a lane coordinate measurement between a center point of a traveling lane of the vehicle and a lane on the roadway adjacent to the traveling lane of the vehicle based on the map data;

determining a lane image measurement that includes a measurement between a center portion of the vehicle and a right lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle and the center portion of the vehicle and a left lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle based on the image data; and

verifying the map data based on the lane coordinate measurement and the lane image measurement,

wherein verifying the map data includes designating the map data as verified when the lane coordinate measurement is equivalent to the lane image measurement.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein determining map data includes at least one of:

accessing a map database from a memory and querying the map database with the locational coordinates of the vehicle extracted from the locational coordinate data to acquire the map data, and accessing a third party mapping service hosted on an externally hosted computing infrastructure and querying the third party mapping service with the locational coordinates of the vehicle extracted from the locational coordinate data to acquire the map data, wherein the map data includes lane level information and environmental information associated with the roadway on which the vehicle is traveling.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the lane coordinate measurement includes determining locational coordinates of a center point of traveling lane of the vehicle and locational coordinates of the center point of the lane on the roadway adjacent to the traveling lane of the vehicle, wherein the center point of the traveling lane is based on the dimensions of the lanes of the roadway that are preprogrammed within the map data.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein determining the lane coordinate measurement includes determining a latitude value that represents latitude degrees that are indicative of the width of the roadway between the center point of the traveling lane of the vehicle and the center point of the lane on the roadway adjacent to the traveling lane of the vehicle, wherein the latitude value is based on the locational coordinates of the center point of the traveling lane of the vehicle and the locational coordinates of the center point of the lane on the roadway adjacent to the traveling lane of the vehicle.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein determining the lane coordinate measurement includes converting the latitude value into the lane coordinate measurement that represents the distance between the center point of the traveling lane of the vehicle and the center point of the lane on the roadway adjacent to the traveling lane of the vehicle.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the lane image measurement includes evaluating the image data to determine image coordinates of the right lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle and image coordinates of the left lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle, wherein evaluating the image data includes determining a first set of image coordinates that are associated to the left lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle and determining a second set of image coordinates that are associated to the right lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle, wherein the first set of image coordinates includes two dimensional coordinates that represent pixels of the image that correspond to the location of the right lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle, and the second set of image coordinates includes two dimensional coordinates that represent pixels of the image that correspond to the location of the left lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein determining the lane image measurement includes calculating a number of pixels of the image that includes a space between a right side portion of the vehicle to a point of the right lane boundary and calculating a number of pixels of the image that includes a space between a left side portion of the vehicle to a point of the left lane boundary.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein determining the lane image measurement includes converting the number of pixels of the image that includes the space between the right side portion of the vehicle and the point of the right lane boundary into a first measurement and converting the number of pixels of the image that includes the space between the left side portion of the vehicle and the point of the left lane boundary into a second measurement.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein determining the lane image measurement includes calculating a summation of a left side image measurement and a right side image measurement, wherein the first measurement is added to a predetermined measurement that corresponds to a space between the right side of portion the vehicle and the center portion of the vehicle to determine the right side image measurement, and the second measurement is added to the predetermined measurement that corresponds to a space between the left side portion of the vehicle and the center portion of the vehicle to determine the left side image measurement.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein verifying the map data includes designating the map data as incorrect when the lane coordinate measurement is not equivalent to the lane image measurement, wherein a command is sent to a vehicle control unit to not utilize locational directives that are based on the map data.

11. A system for verifying map data for a vehicle, comprising:

a map data verification application that is executed by a vehicle control unit of the vehicle;

a lane coordinate measurement module configured to receive locational coordinate data related to a roadway on which the vehicle is traveling from a navigation system and image data pertaining to the roadway on which the vehicle is traveling from a vehicle camera system, wherein the lane coordinate measurement module is configured determine map data associated with the roadway on which the vehicle is traveling based on the locational coordinate data;

a lane image measurement module configured to determine a lane image measurement that includes a measurement between a center portion of the vehicle and a right lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle and the center portion of the vehicle and a left lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle based on the image data; and

a map data verification module that is configured to verify the map data based on the lane coordinate measurement and the lane image measurement,

wherein the map data verification module is configured to designate the map data as verified when the lane coordinate measurement is equivalent to the lane image measurement.

12. The system of claim 11, wherein the lane coordinate measurement module determines map data by accessing at least one of:

a map database from a memory and querying the map database with the locational coordinates of the vehicle extracted from the locational coordinate data to acquire the map data, and a third party mapping service hosted on an externally hosted computing infrastructure and querying the third party mapping service with the locational coordinates of the vehicle extracted from the locational coordinate data to acquire the map data, wherein the map data includes lane level information and environmental information associated with the roadway on which the vehicle is traveling.

13. The system of claim 11, wherein the lane coordinate measurement module determines locational coordinates of a center point of traveling lane of the vehicle and locational coordinates of the center point of the lane on the roadway adjacent to the traveling lane of the vehicle, wherein the center point of the traveling lane is based on the dimensions of the lanes of the roadway that are preprogrammed within the map data.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the lane coordinate measurement module determines a latitude value that represents latitude degrees that are indicative of the width of the roadway between the center point of the traveling lane of the vehicle and the center point of the lane on the roadway adjacent to the traveling lane of the vehicle, wherein the latitude value is based on the locational coordinates of the center point of the traveling lane of the vehicle and the locational coordinates of the center point of the lane on the roadway adjacent to the traveling lane of the vehicle.

15. The system of claim 14, wherein the lane coordinate measurement module converts the latitude value into the lane coordinate measurement that represents the distance between the center point of the traveling lane of the vehicle and the center point of the lane on the roadway adjacent to the traveling lane of the vehicle.

16. The system of claim 11, wherein the lane image measurement module evaluates the image data to determine image coordinates of the right lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle and image coordinates of the left lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle, wherein the lane image measurement module determines a first set of image coordinates that are associated to the left lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle and the lane image measurement module determines a second set of image coordinates that are associated to the right lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle, wherein the first set of image coordinates includes two dimensional coordinates that represent pixels of the image that correspond to the location of the right lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle, and the second set of image coordinates includes two dimensional coordinates that represent pixels of the image that correspond to the location of the left lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the lane image measurement module converts the number of pixels of the image that includes a space between the right side portion of the vehicle and the point of the right lane boundary into a first measurement the lane image measurement module converts the number of pixels of the image that includes a space between the left side portion of the vehicle and the point of the left lane boundary into a second measurement.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein the lane image measurement module calculates a summation of a left side image measurement and a right side image measurement, wherein the lane image measurement module adds the first measurement to a predetermined measurement that corresponds to a space between the right side portion of the vehicle and the center portion of the vehicle to determine the right side image measurement, and the lane image measurement module adds the second measurement to the predetermined measurement that corresponds to a space between the left side portion of the vehicle and the center portion of the vehicle to determine the left side image measurement.

19. The system of claim 11, wherein the map data verification module designates the map data as incorrect when the lane coordinate measurement is not equivalent to the lane image measurement, wherein the map data verification module sends a command to the vehicle control unit to not utilize locational directives that are based on the map data.

20. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that when executed by a computer, which includes at least a processor, causes the computer to perform a method, the method comprising:

receiving locational coordinate data related to a roadway on which a vehicle is traveling from a navigation system and image data pertaining to the roadway on which the vehicle is traveling from a vehicle camera system;

determining map data associated with the roadway on which the vehicle is traveling based on the locational coordinate data;

determining a lane coordinate measurement between a center point of a traveling lane of the vehicle and a lane on the roadway adjacent to the traveling lane of the vehicle based on the map data;

determining a lane image measurement that includes a measurement between a center portion of the vehicle and a right lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle and the center portion of the vehicle and a left lane boundary of the traveling lane of the vehicle based on the image data; and

verifying the map data based on the lane coordinate measurement and the lane image measurement,

wherein verifying the map data includes designating the map data as verified when the lane coordinate measurement is equivalent to the lane image measurement.