US 12,259,259 B2
Method and device for generating map data
Ying Zhang, Singapore (SG); Jagannadan Varadarajan, Singapore (SG); Roger Zimmermann, Singapore (SG); and Guanfeng Wang, Singapore (SG)
Assigned to GRABTAXI HOLDINGS PTE. LTD., Singapore (SG)
Appl. No. 18/020,595
Filed by GRABTAXI HOLDINGS PTE. LTD., Singapore (SG)
PCT Filed Jul. 7, 2021, PCT No. PCT/SG2021/050395
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Feb. 9, 2023,
PCT Pub. No. WO2022/035373, PCT Pub. Date Feb. 17, 2022.
Claims priority of application No. 10202007811Q (SG), filed on Aug. 14, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2023/0304826 A1, Sep. 28, 2023
Int. Cl. G01C 21/00 (2006.01); G06N 3/0475 (2023.01); G06N 3/094 (2023.01)
CPC G01C 21/3852 (2020.08) [G01C 21/3848 (2020.08); G06N 3/0475 (2023.01); G06N 3/094 (2023.01)] 18 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for generating map data comprising:
training a generator neural network by
acquiring training data elements for a generative adversarial network, each training data element comprising a satellite image of a geographical area, a road usage image of the geographical area which shows routes in the geographical area which may be used for driving a vehicle and a map data image of the geographical area, the satellite image an image of the geographical area and acquired from a satellite image database; and
training the generative adversarial network by training the generator neural network, using the training data elements, to generate, for a satellite image and a road usage image of a training data element, the map data image of the training data element; and
generating map data for a first geographical area by
acquiring first road usage information specifying which parts of the first geographical area have been used for driving a vehicle, the first road usage information including one or more raw global positioning system (GPS) traces received from a plurality of vehicles that have driven in the first geographical area, the one or more raw GPS traces provided in a textual form;
acquiring a first satellite image of the first geographical area;
forming a first road usage image of the first geographical area by converting the one or more raw GPS traces from the textual form into the first road usage image using GPS image rendering, the first road usage image having pixels, each pixel corresponding to a respective part of the first geographical area, such that each pixel has a pixel value indicating whether the part of the first geographical area, to which the pixel corresponds, is specified by the first road usage information to have been used for driving a vehicle;
feeding the first satellite image and the first road usage image to the trained generator neural network to produce a generated map data image of the first geographical area; and
outputting the generated map data image for the first geographical area.