BMW Group and Daimler are making HERE HD Live Map an integral part of their future highly automated and autonomous vehicles.
BMW has signed an agreement to use HD Live Map in its models from the starting of the next decade to improve safety and comfort for drivers and passengers.
It is HERE's first commercial contract with an automaker to bring HD Live Map into production models.
BMW Group senior vice president of electronics Christoph Grote said: "Together with HD Live Map, we have essential building blocks for highly and fully automated driving in place for the long term.
"As we progress towards this point, we will be able to offer our customers further location-based services and driver assistance information later this year."
On the other hand, Daimler is making HERE HD Live Map an integral part of Daimler’s autonomous driving technology.
The upcoming generations of highly automated and autonomous Mercedes-Benz vehicles will have the benefits of HD Live Map on board.
For the automaker, it is said to be the next logical step, as already its E- and S-Class models and the new A-Class are using HERE’s maps.
Besides cloud-based maps, HERE has also developed ‘self-healing’ maps which can reflect dynamic changes in the road environment and update itself accordingly in near real-time. Cars can make such updates and alert other cars and proactively adjust to their changing environments.
For self-healing maps, vehicle sensor data is considered to be the most crucial element, as the quality and there could be a large volume of vehicles on the road that can detect and validate change. HERE claims that it is already receiving huge amount of vehicle sensor data from several automakers including Daimler, to produce near real-time map updates.
Giving passenger safety a top priority, HERE HD live map constantly publishes changes to the map through a content validation process and multiple sensors act as ‘closed loop’ to detect deviations from the published data.
HERE Technologies Automotive senior vice president Ralf Herrtwich said: “The map of the future is one that’s self-healing – constantly updating to mirror what is happening across the road network.
“Together with Daimler, we are mastering this powerful mapping technology and are truly excited to make it available for the next generation of Mercedes-Benz vehicles.
