China Progresses toward Achieving HD Mapping, but Further Development Hinges upon Regulation

ABI Research forecasts the global advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) market will reach a value of over US$39 billion, with a 9% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) from 2017 to 2028. A crucial component of ADAS would be high definition (HD) maps, which provide mission-critical functionalities due to precise localizations and driving efficiency from 3D environmental perceptions.

China has become the world’s largest automotive market with over 300 million registered vehicles, a number on par with the population of the United States. ABI Research notes that China has the potential to contribute to one quarter of the global connected vehicle market by 2025, with an average increase of 44.9% connected vehicles each year. China presses on with its ambition to have 10% to 20% of its cars to be autonomous by 2025.  The OneMap Alliance, a strategic alliance between China’s NavInfo, Korea’s SK Telecom, Japan’s Pioneer/Increment P, and HERE Technologies that aims to create a single HD map for driverless cars in Asia by 2020, hopes to contribute to that vision.

The OneMap Alliance has made recent moves, first with NavInfo’s maiden overseas expansion into Singapore to create an HD map for driverless cars in November 2018, and second with NavInfo’s partnership with HERE, announced at MWC19 in late February this year, in which they would enable China’s map data to comply with HERE’s worldwide digital map specifications.

HD maps in China are challenging to develop due to stringent People’s Republic of China (PRC) surveying and mapping laws. While a significant percentage of the world’s digital map vendors use the World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS-84) standard, China’s national security mandates Chinese companies use “Mars Coordinates,” or the GCJ-02 coordinate system, instead. The GCJ-02 system randomly offsets both altitudes and longitudes when a WGS-84 marker is used, resulting in a 100=700 m error from the actual location. With HERE’s specification, an HD map of China with localization can be built (see Figure 1). According to ABI Research, a HD map with localization gives autonomous vehicles the centimeter-level precision required to be guided safely, identify curves and sudden changes in elevations for comfortable and fuel-efficient driving, and is an essential part of advanced levels of automation for ADAS (SAE Levels 4 and 5).

The OneMap Alliance offers a unified solution and gives automobile original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) the option of having a standardized HD map provider. More importantly, it creates application convergence that strengthens the autonomous vehicle ecosystem. Converging on a standardized HD map format solves the problem of a lack of interoperability between map suppliers, OEMs, and map analytics companies, which potentially helps reduce the operational costs for hosting, development, and consulting services.

Alongside vehicle-to-everything (V2X) sensors that are embedded in every car, a self-healing mechanism that updates a single map reference database stored in the cloud in real time can then be implemented. Having a single map also allows leverage of crowdsourcing, as many data points can be funneled into one map, increasing its validity and accuracy. The assurance of an accurate map at any given time allows for the off-loading of “on the fly” computing of traffic signs, lane keeping, and other smaller functionalities onto maps, freeing up space for safety-critical computations to be done in a timely manner. Automobile OEMs and terminal vendors will also eventually have to adopt cloud technology that operates with high bandwidth communication links to support the HD map models.

While the OneMap Alliance seems promising, China still faces strict mapping regulations. Currently, China limits foreign investment for mapping activities to joint ventures, with foreign investors’ shareholding limited to less than fifty percent. Furthermore, all digital maps provided in China need to be stored on servers within its borders. However, the most recent partnership with HERE makes it clear that the Chinese government and Chinese enterprises are very much committed to HD mapping efforts.

The OneMap Alliance is not the only joint venture initiative in the HD mapping space. In 2017, TomTom and Baidu announced that they were working together to create a “globally unified HD map service” for automobile OEMs. TomTom intends to offer its mapmaking platform, while Baidu will integrate its AI and autonomous driving technologies. Pursuant to this, TomTom and Baidu announced early last year that TomTom’s HD Map would be integrated into Apollo, Baidu’s autonomous driving system. Chinese companies are working proactively into the unified HD mapping space, which creates opportunities for synergies with 5G and cloud computing. 5G enables the fast downloading of map data from the cloud and high-speed connectivity with transportation control centers, traffic lights, and other vehicles via cellular vehicle-to-everything (C-V2X). This ensures accurate positioning of the vehicle on an updated map that displays the latest traffic conditions and positions of accidents, giving the driver or ADAS more time for calculations or route planning. Cloud computing, which allows for real time analytics and supports large file sizes from HD maps being sent over-the-air (OTA), will need to be developed to achieve the interoperability hopes of unified map solutions.