Method and system for classifying vehicle based road sign observations

• US 10,838,986 B2
• Filed: 07/12/2018
• Issued: 11/17/2020
• Est. Priority Date: 07/12/2018
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: HERE Global B.V. (Nokia Corporation)
• Original Assignee: HERE Global B.V. (Nokia Corporation)
• Inventors: Zhang, Zhenhua, Stenneth, Leon
• Primary Examiner(s): Brushaber, Frederick M
• Application Number:
  US16/034,222
• Publication Number:
  US 20200019639A1
• Time in Patent Office: 859 Days
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/26 specially adapted for navigation in a road network
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3602 Input other than that of destination using image analysis, e.g. detection of road signs, lanes, buildings, real preceding vehicles using a camera
• CPC Class Codes: G01C 21/3807 characterised by the type of data
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/148 File search processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/162 Delete operations erasing in storage systems G06F3/0652
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/2379 Updates performed during online database operations; commit processing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/285 Clustering or classification
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/29 Geographical information databases
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9537 Spatial or temporal dependent retrieval, e.g. spatiotemporal queries

Abstract

A method, system, and computer program product is provided, for example, for filtering road signs. The method comprises receiving a road sign observation information from a vehicle on a link. The road sign information includes at least a location of the vehicle. The method further comprises retrieving a sign file information from a database. The sign file information includes location of a plurality of VSS gantries in a geographical region. The method further includes filtering the road sign observation information if the location of the vehicle is within a predetermined distance threshold from at least one VSS gantry from the plurality of VSS gantries in the geographical region.

Claims

1. A method to filter a road sign observation in a database comprising:

receiving the road sign observation information from a vehicle on a link, wherein the road sign information includes at least a location of the vehicle;

retrieving, from the database, a sign file information wherein the sign file information includes location of a plurality of VSS gantries in a geographical region; and

filtering the road sign observation information if the location of the vehicle is within a predetermined distance threshold from at least one VSS gantry from the plurality of VSS gantries in the geographical region.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein filtering the road sign observation information comprises deleting the road sign observation information from the database.

3. The method of claim 1 further comprises:

identifying a heading information of the vehicle on the link;

identifying a heading information of the at least one VS S gantry;

identifying a heading of sight from the vehicle to the at least one VSS gantry based on the heading information of the vehicle and the heading information of the at least one VSS gantry;

identifying a distance range for road sign observation information detection;

calculating, by a processor, a difference between heading information of the vehicle and the heading of sight from the vehicle to the at least one VSS gantry; and

filtering the road sign observation information based on the difference between the heading information of the vehicle and the heading of sight from the vehicle to the at least one VSS gantry and the distance range for road sign observation information detection.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein filtering the road sign observation information further comprises deleting the road sign observation information from the database if the distance range for the road sign observation information detection is within a long-distance threshold and without a short-distance threshold, and the difference between the heading information of the vehicle and the heading of sight from the vehicle to the at least one VSS gantry is less than the heading difference threshold.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein filtering the road sign observation information further comprises deleting the road sign observation information from the database if the distance range for the road sign observation information detection is within a short-distance threshold.

6. The method of claim 4, wherein filtering the road sign observation information further comprises deleting the road sign observation information from the database if the distance range for the road sign observation information detection is within a short-distance threshold and the heading information of the at least one VSS gantry is similar to the heading information of the vehicle.

7. The method of claim 3, wherein the heading difference threshold can be changed based on the distance range for road sign observation detection such that the heading difference threshold is increased with increase in the distance for road sign observation detection.

8. The method of claim 3, wherein the long-distance threshold is based on the type of link, wherein the link can include at least one of a controlled-access highway and a non-controlled access highway, wherein the long-distance threshold is less on the non-controlled access highway than the long-distance threshold on the controlled access highway.

9. A mapping platform comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one memory including computer program code for one or more programs,

the at least one memory and the computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the mapping platform to perform at least the following;

receive a road sign observation information from a vehicle, wherein the road sign observation information includes a heading information of the vehicle;

receive a sign file information, wherein the sign file information is used to identify a heading information for a gantry;

identify a heading of sight from the vehicle to the gantry based on the heading information of the vehicle and the heading information of the gantry;

identify a distance range for road sign observation information detection;

calculate a difference between the heading information of the vehicle and the heading of sight from the vehicle to the gantry; and

filter the road sign observation information based on a first filtering criteria or a second filtering criteria, wherein the first filtering criteria includes at least that the distance range for road sign observation information detection is within a long distance threshold and the second filtering criteria includes at least that the distance range for road sign observation information detection is within a short-distance threshold.

10. The mapping platform of claim 9, wherein the first filtering criteria further includes a difference between the heading information of the vehicle and the heading of sight from the vehicle to the gantry.

11. The mapping platform of claim 9, wherein the short-distance threshold is less than the long-distance threshold.

12. The mapping platform of claim 9, wherein the gantry is a variable speed sign gantry.

13. The mapping platform of claim 9, wherein to filter the road sign observation information, the mapping platform is further caused to delete the road sign observation information from the mapping platform if the distance range for the road sign observation information detection is within the long-distance threshold and without the short-distance threshold, and the difference between the heading information of the vehicle and the heading of sight from the vehicle to gantry is less than a heading difference threshold.

14. The mapping platform of claim 9, wherein to filter the road sign observation information, the mapping platform is further caused to delete the road sign observation information if the distance range for the road sign observation information detection is within the short-distance threshold.

15. The mapping platform of claim 9, wherein to filter the road sign observation information, the mapping platform is further caused to delete the road sign observation information if the distance range for the road sign observation information detection is within the short-distance threshold and the heading information of the gantry is similar to the heading information of the vehicle.

16. A computer program product comprising at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-executable program code instructions stored therein, the computer-executable program code instructions comprising program code instructions for:

receiving a road sign observation information from a vehicle, wherein the road sign observation information includes a heading information of the vehicle;

receiving a sign file information, wherein the sign file information is used to identify a heading information for a gantry;

identifying a heading of sight from the vehicle to the gantry based on the heading information of the vehicle and the heading information of the gantry;

identifying a distance range for road sign observation information detection;

calculating a difference between the heading information of the vehicle and the heading of sight from the vehicle to the gantry; and

filtering the road sign observation information based on a first filtering criteria or a second filtering criteria, wherein the first filtering criteria includes at least that the distance range for road sign observation information detection is within a long distance threshold and the second filtering criteria includes at least that the distance range for road sign observation information detection is within a short-distance threshold.

17. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein filtering the road sign observation information further comprises deleting the road sign observation information from a database if the distance range for the road sign observation information detection is within the long-distance threshold and without the short-distance threshold, and the difference between the heading information of the vehicle and the heading of sight from the vehicle to gantry is less than a heading difference threshold.

18. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein filtering the road sign observation information further comprises deleting the road sign observation information from a database if the distance range for the road sign observation information detection is within the short-distance threshold.

19. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein filtering the road sign observation information further comprises deleting the road sign observation information if the distance range for the road sign observation information detection is within the short-distance threshold and the heading information of the gantry is similar to the heading information of the vehicle.

20. The computer program product of claim 16, wherein the gantry is a variable speed sign gantry.