NDS.Live Localization Module offers numerous possibilities

13. March 2024

Localization technologies such as GPS (Global Positioning System), GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System), Wi-Fi positioning, mobile positioning, and inertial navigation systems (INS) allow us to precisely determine a user’s current position. Through the continuous development and integration of new technologies, navigation tools are becoming ever more powerful and offer improved navigation experience. The members of the Navigation Data Standard Association have set themselves the task of continuously developing innovative solutions and approaches. NDS.Live plays a central role in this development. Let’s find out what the NDS.Live Localization Module has to offer.

The NDS.Live Localization Module provides different types of localization objects to support localization use cases.

Importance of localization

Localization is crucial in navigation development for several reasons:

Accuracy: Accurate localization ensures that the navigation system can pinpoint the user’s exact location. This accuracy is essential for providing reliable guidance, especially in complex urban environments or remote areas where landmarks may be scarce.
Geotagging and Location-Based Services: Many navigation applications rely on geotagging and location-based services to provide relevant information, such as nearby points of interest, restaurants, gas stations, and more. Accurate localization is essential for delivering these services effectively.
Precise Routing: Knowing the precise location allows navigation systems to offer optimal routes tailored to the user’s current position, taking into account factors like traffic conditions, road closures, and construction.
User Experience: Inaccurate localization can lead to frustration and inconvenience for users. Providing accurate localization enhances the overall user experience by delivering reliable and timely navigation instructions.
Safety: In applications such as autonomous vehicles, accurate localization is critical for safe operation. It ensures that vehicles can navigate effectively, avoid obstacles, and adhere to traffic regulations.
Augmented Reality (AR) Integration: Localization is fundamental for the integration of augmented reality features in navigation apps. AR overlays depend on precise positioning to provide users with real-time visual information about their surroundings.

NDS.Live Localization module

The Localization module in NDS.Live provides different types of localization objects to support localization use cases. Localization objects represent real-world objects, such as signs or road-side furniture like posts and poles. If the sensors of a vehicle detect such objects along the road, then the application can use these to determine the vehicle’s position.

The Localization module offers the following types of localization objects:

Landmarks are classified geometric objects that optionally have additional detail information. Landmarks use line geometries, planar polygon geometries (2D), or polygon mesh geometries (3D).
Obstacles are line geometries that are either horizontal or vertical to the road surface and provide no additional information. Obstacles do not have IDs.
Occupancy grids are matrixes with individual filling of each cell. Occupancy grids can be used to model the probability that specific locations (cells) are occupied by an object.

The following figure shows an example of the visualization of an occupancy grid with lanes as overlay. Light pixels represent a high probability that a cell in the grid is occupied. Dark pixels represent a high probability that a cell is unoccupied.

In addition to the localization objects themselves, the Localization module provides attributes that allow to model relations between the localization objects and roads, lanes, or road surfaces.

Localization objects are provided using the corresponding geometry layer. The relations between localization objects and map features are provided using the corresponding attribute layer.

The Localization module includes the following files:

Description	Files
Provides attributes of the localization layers.	attributes.zs
Provides instantiations of templates used in the Localization module.	instantiations.zs
Provides the localization layers for landmarks, obstacles, and occupancy grids.	layer.zs
Provides metadata for the localization layers.	metadata.zs
Provides attribute properties of localization attributes.	properties.zs
Provides types for localization attributes and attribute properties.	types.zs

Landmarks can have relations to other map features like roads or lanes. These relations are expressed via an attribute map. Occupancy grids can also have relations to other map features like roads or lanes, being expressed via an attribute map as well.

If want to know more about the localization module and NDS.Live, please visit the NDS.Live Developer Portal.

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