PALO ALTO, Calif. – DeepMap, Inc., a global leader in autonomous driving technology, today announced DeepMap RoadMemory™, a crowdsourced mapping service.
RoadMemory enables automakers to accelerate the creation and deployment of large-scale digital maps via data collected from their own fleets of passenger vehicles and trucks. It is designed to expand geographic coverage more quickly and support hands-off autonomous driving features everywhere.
DeepMap is announcing RoadMemory in response to demand from vehicle makers seeking large-scale, high-performance, and economical mapping capabilities to support increased autonomy for upcoming production vehicles. Improved autonomy includes driver support features such as highway assist, intelligent braking, and traffic jam pilot.
RoadMemory will automatically build maps using crowdsourced data collected from on-car sensors such as cameras, radars, and newly-available automotive-grade LiDARs. RoadMemory is sensor-agnostic, providing a high degree of flexibility to automakers who require an open system and a choice of sensors to meet their needs.
RoadMemory will work hand-in-hand with DeepMap HDR™ (High-Definition Reference), DeepMap’s highest-fidelity mapping offering. RoadMemory enables automakers to augment HDR’s market-leading fidelity and ground truth accuracy with the scalable coverage, low latency, and superior economics of crowdsourcing.
James Wu, Co-Founder and CEO of DeepMap, said: “RoadMemory addresses the immediate autonomy needs of near-term production vehicles while providing a natural roadmap for future higher levels of autonomy. DeepMap is offering a future-proof ‘best of both worlds’ approach which leverages the sensor capabilities available in cars today while increasing the fidelity of maps over time as cars become more capable.”
Mark Wheeler, Co-Founder and CTO of DeepMap, said: “Automated driver assistance and Level 2+ through Level 3 capabilities have become a critical battleground for automakers. Camera and LiDAR sensors are starting to ramp and proliferate for near-term production models. In tandem, automakers are evaluating and choosing their map source. DeepMap is providing a future-proof mapping solution for crowdsourced data that will enable more advanced functionality over time as the vehicle sensors improve and coverage expands.”
Wheeler added: “Building maps has been a large and expensive undertaking until now. DeepMap leverages state-of-the-art AI and mapping technologies built from the ground up for machines, by those same machines. Now it is possible to create the large-scale, fresh, accurate, open, and economical maps the transportation industry needs to advance to higher levels of autonomy.”
About DeepMap
DeepMap is accelerating safe autonomy by providing the world’s best autonomous mapping and localization solutions. DeepMap delivers the technology necessary for self-driving vehicles to navigate in a complex and unpredictable environment. The company addresses three important elements: precise high-definition (HD) mapping, ultra-accurate real-time localization, and the serving infrastructure to support massive global scaling. DeepMap was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., with offices in Beijing and Guangzhou, China. Investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Accel, GSR Ventures, Generation, Goldman Sachs, NVIDIA, and Robert Bosch Venture Capital. For more information, see www.deepmap.ai.
