HERE HD Live Self-Healing Maps for Mercedes-Benz and BMW Self-Driving

HERE HD Live Map will help the deployment of Daimler’s autonomous vehicles and BMW self-driving vehicles.

Coming in the new decade, the BMW Group will use the HERE HD Live Map, bringing new accuracy and new features to your driving experience. HERE HD Live Map will be powering the next wave of highly automated driving features from the BMW Group. 

Previously, HERE map data has been in several models of BMW cars. Those maps are the perfect solution for navigation while a human is at the wheel, but to get the accuracy needed for Level 3 and Level 4 autonomous driving, you need a precision navigation system that can locate your car accurately within a matter of centimeters.

Utilizing that precise location data, the BMW Group can begin turning on advanced autonomous features where the vehicle AI can take the wheel and alert the driver whenever it needs help.

With this new agreement, the HERE HD Live Map will be built into BMW models starting in the next decade.  The features enabled will raise the standards for driver safety and driver comfort alike.

The BMW Group has been putting sensor-enabled cars on the road since 2015, and their total number of connected cars has reached over 10 million vehicles.  That history of data, as well as the real-time detection of data from the roadway is a principal element of enabling automated driving.

Daimler and HERE Technologies have teamed up to make HERE HD Live Map an integral part of Daimler’s autonomous driving technology. With these efforts both companies are laying the ground work for upcoming generations of highly automated and autonomous Mercedes-Benz vehicles to come to market with the benefits of HD Live Map on board. For Daimler, this is a logical step as the current E- and S-class models are already using maps from HERE.

Highly precise digital maps are a key component for advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) and autonomous driving. The machine-readable, cloud-based HD Live Map allows an automated vehicle to effectively ‘see around corners’ and consists of multiple layers of information essential for it to know where exactly it is, what lies ahead and what it should do in various scenarios.

HERE has created HD Live Map to be “self-healing”. This means it can reflect dynamic changes in the road environment and update itself accordingly in near real-time. This enables vehicles to proactively adjust to changing road conditions – for example, switching lanes and adjusting speed ahead of time in the case of an upcoming lane closure.

Vehicle sensor data is the most crucial element for an HD map to self-heal because of its quality, and the sheer volume of vehicles on the road that can detect and validate change. HERE is already receiving rich vehicle sensor data from multiple automakers, including Daimler, to produce near real-time map updates. With passenger safety top of mind, HERE HD Live Map constantly publishes changes to the map through an innovative content validation process, where multiple vehicle sensors act as a “closed loop” to detect any deviations from the published data.

“The map of the future is one that’s self-healing – constantly updating to mirror what is happening across the road network” said Ralf Herrtwich, SVP Automotive at HERE Technologies. “Together with Daimler, we are mastering this powerful mapping technology and are truly excited to make it available for the next generations of Mercedes-Benz vehicles.”

Ola Källenius, Member of the Board of Management for Group Research and Mercedes-Benz Cars Development, emphasized: “Maps with centimeter precision updating itself in near real-time, is one key element for autonomous driving. With the new HD Live Map and the rich, continuously growing information it provides we are taking a big step on the way towards autonomous driving.”