How NDS.Live supports HD map development

Can you remember your first navigation device? GPS was first used in military settings, followed by avionics and naval applications for a selected group of companies. For motor vehicles, GPS became a mass market product in the 2000’s after Bill Clinton discontinued its “selected availability” in May 2000. Today, it is hard to imagine life without navigation tools. And as the fields of application have increased, the map quality has also improved. Today, there is no way around HD maps. Reason enough to show how NDS.Live can support the development of HD maps. Boris Gumhold, Senior Engineering Manager NDS Technology at HERE has recently been confirmed in his position as chairman of the technical committee (TC) for the NDS Association. He explains the advantages of NDS.Live when developing HD maps but also describe obstacles that might arise. But let’s focus on HD maps in general first.

HD maps make modern mobility safer and more efficient

HD (High Definition) maps are detailed digital maps that contain high-resolution and precise information about roads, terrain, buildings, and other geographical features. These maps play an increasingly important role in modern navigation and mobility for several reasons:

• Precision and accuracy: HD maps offer higher resolution and accuracy compared to conventional maps. This precision is crucial for modern driver assistance systems and autonomous driving.
  • 3D representation: HD maps often provide a detailed 3D representation of roads, buildings, and terrain.  Traditional use-cases were in advanced map display enriching the user experience of the driver (the well-known NDS.Classic Advanced Map Display building block). Modern use-cases can be:
• Improved GNSS measurements in cities in terms of accuracy and precision – if the multipath problem can be solved. 3D city models are a method to develop error models describing how GNSS signals are reflected by buildings.
• Augmented Reality is another trend amongst car-manufacturers. They can benefit from 3D representation complementing common sensors used for perception.
• Finally, ADAS/AD can benefit from 3D road model representation on motorways in difficult weather conditions.
  • Resolution: This aspect refers to the level of digitization. The improved resolution of HD maps allows for more complex ADAS use-cases to be implemented.
  • Real-time updates: HD maps can be updated in real-time to reflect changes in traffic infrastructure, road conditions or other relevant information. These updates can be provided by connected vehicles or other sources.
  • Driver assistance systems: Driver assistance systems, such as adaptive cruise control, lane departure warning and autonomous driving, rely heavily on accurate map information. HD maps provide the detail required to operate such systems effectively.
  • Optimizing routes and traffic flow: By integrating real-time traffic data and road infrastructure information, HD maps can help optimize routes and improve traffic flow in urban areas. This can lead to more efficient mobility and shorter journey times.
  • Environmental awareness: HD maps can integrate eco-friendly features by providing information on alternative routes, charging stations for electric vehicles and other environmentally friendly options. This supports the growing trend towards sustainable mobility.
  • Vehicle-to-infrastructure communication: HD maps support communication between vehicles and the infrastructure (V2X communication). The exchange of real-time data between vehicles and road infrastructure can further improve safety and efficiency.
  • Urban planning and development: HD maps also provide city planners and transportation experts with valuable information for urban planning and development. This data can assist in optimizing traffic systems, designing urban areas, and addressing traffic problems.

Overall, HD maps help to make mobility safer, more efficient, and user-friendly. They are particularly crucial for the introduction of autonomous vehicles, as they rely on precise map information to navigate safely and reliably.

NDS.Live natively supports autonomous driving use cases

Boris Gumhold comments: “NDS.Live has been developed with HD, autonomous driving and other ‘modern’ use cases in mind. This is the difference to NDS.Classic which was developed in the IVI only world. NDS.Live natively supports use cases such as autonomous mobility, software-defined vehicles, e-mobility, safe mobility, smart (C-ITS) mobility and more.”

• These scenarios are reflected in the concepts and the way NDS.Live data is modelled. It includes tile self-containment so that each tile does not need other tiles to fulfil a given use case. Furthermore, developers benefit from map-agnostic referencing (via lat/lon) that can be used for all references in addition to direct and location-based data.
• But that’s not all, because map content is “layered” where each layer is a collection of one or several attributes. One advantage of the application is to use only content necessary for the use case (minimising transmission cost and time to process data). Another advantage for map suppliers is to optimize map production pipelines and reuse layers for multiple products. This way production costs can be decreased.
• In NDS.Live “lane” is a feature and not an attribute of a road. In NDS.Classic “lane” was an attribute which caused many modelling and implementation issues. “For HD use cases this change has a significant impact compared to older formats”, says Gumhold.
• Additionally, NDS.Live offers a natively supported OTA interface, optimally supporting transmission use cases for HD, ADAS etc. where the focus is on the local geographic context or e-horizon. The concept of self-contained tiles and layers supports this concept: Not only tile-based usage is supported but also “object” based transmission of individual objects and “path” based transmission of all necessary data for the given corridor of a car, where the corridor definition may be adjusted to a given use case.

The aspects mentioned above ensure that the development of map solutions based on NDS.Live is more efficient compared to NDS.Classic or other formats. In addition, map providers can design their processes more cost-efficiently and smoothly.

However, according to Grumpolt, the following hurdles need to be overcome to implement benefits comprehensively and effectively. 

• At this point, NDS.Live is not yet commonly adopted by industry players as the map format to replace NDS.Classic: “There has been relatively little feedback for some time based on actual NDS.Live maps, either producing or using it in the car. Fortunately, we are currently seeing a positive trend with HERE going into full speed development with the goal to have production ready NDS.Live HD/ADAS maps by 2025.” 
• Additionally, there is a noticeable shift from “compiling maps and delivering B2B (to the cloud)” to “compiling maps and simultaneously delivering B2C (to cars)”. This impacts the technology stack for map publication and delivery, but it also requires a very high level of automation of all processes and increases the overall cost of map publication operations.
• It should also be mentioned that there is a shift related to map freshness – from quarterly to monthly fresh maps or weekly to daily fresh maps. Although this is not a specific challenge for NDS.Live, this is a current industry trend in which NDS.Live map providers will need to consider as it requires a high level of automation and increases operational costs.

Would you like to find out more about the possibilities and functions of NDS.Live? You can log in to the NDS.Live Developer Portal here.