ACTMAP - Actual and dynamic MAP for transport telematic applications
Overview
Background & policy context:
Up-to-date map data are a must for current and future in-vehicle ITS applications, mainly Ad-vanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) and navigation applications. Today there are more than 4 million in-vehicle navigation systems in Europe that are using a digital road map on a CD or DVD. As the real world changes every day, an important challenge is to keep these onboard maps as up-to-date and as accurate as possible. Today a typical map update takes place via the dis-tribution of a new map CD once every 6-12 months.
The EC-funded ActMAP project (Apr. 2002 – Nov. 2004) has developed strategies and mecha-nisms for the dynamic update of digital map databases. This represents an important milestone for the quality of the map databases for future in-vehicle applications. The project has built a test en-vironment to validate the mechanisms. The test sites include advanced navigation applications and ADAS applications (curve speed assistance and Predictive Cruise Control with speed adaptation).
ActMAP developed a solution to increase the frequency of the updating cycle and improve its content by using technologies already available today (See Figure 1).
It is our vision that future navigation and advanced driver assistance systems will require an on-board map database much more up-to-date and dynamic than what is available today. This will improve the navigation experience and enable new applications in the area of driver safety. As the number of safety systems is expected to significantly increase over the next years, there is a strong need for a standardised process to update the onboard maps.
Objectives:
The main goal was to investigate and develop strategies for the dynamic update of digital map databases, especially standardized exchange format for facilitating the interaction be-tween different parties in the whole map updating chain, i.e., map providers, location-based con-tent providers, service centres, and in-vehicle map database. By doing so, the consortium hoped to build a wider market for the provision of map updates opening the doors to location-based content providers and their dynamic or static added-value data. This should increase the potential of the emerging applications for in-vehicle end-users.
Methodology:
The project has built a test environment to validate the map data & dynamic update mechanisms. The test sites included advanced navigation applications and ADAS applications (curve speed control and Predictive Cruise Control (PCC) with speed adaptation). After validation, the proposed mechanisms were submitted to the relevant standardisation body (ISO TC204/WG3).
Each test site has selected complementary aspects of the ActMAP framework, which were examined and assessed jointly. In order to verify the feasibility of the framework, a set of indicators was set up and each test site evaluated a subset of these indicators.
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