Skip to main content

TomTom and Baidu join forces to develop HD maps for autonomous driving

TomTom and Chinese mapping service provider Baidu have joined forces to develop high definition (HD) maps for autonomous driving.
July 7, 2017 Read time: 1 min

1692 TomTom and Chinese mapping service provider Baidu have joined forces to develop high definition (HD) maps for autonomous driving. Their collaboration combines their expertise in HD map-making and artificial intelligence (AI). Baidu will leverage TomTom’s real-time map platform to improve HD map-related technologies utilised in China.

TomTom’s HD Map and RoadDNA are two digital map products helping automated vehicles precisely locate themselves on the road and plan manoeuvres, even when travelling at high speeds. TomTom’s HD Map already covers the USA and Western Europe, with over 360,000km of highways and interstates mapped.

Leveraging its resource and capabilities in AI, Baidu has been developing HD maps since 2013, using smart technologies such as deep learning to help automate data processing and map creation. Earlier this year, it announced its open source autonomous driving platform, Apollo, which aims to build a collaborative ecosystem for companies to work together and to promote the development and popularisation of autonomous driving technology.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Machine vision - cameras for intelligent traffic management
    January 25, 2012
    For some, machine vision is the coming technology. For others, it’s already here. Although it remains a relative newcomer to the ITS sector, its effects look set to be profound and far-reaching. Encapsulating in just a few short words the distinguishing features of complex technologies and their operating concepts can sometimes be difficult. Often, it is the most subtle of nuances which are both the most important and yet also the most easily lost. Happily, in the case of machine vision this isn’t the case:
  • Autonomous vehicles, smart cities: moving beyond the hype
    February 21, 2018
    There is a lot of excited chatter about autonomous vehicles – but 2getthere’s Robbert Lohmann suggests we might need to take a step back and look realistically at what is achievable. You might be surprised that the chief commercial officer of a company delivering autonomous vehicles would begin an article with the suggestion that we need to get past the hype. And yet I do; because we have to, and urgently so. The hype prevents the development of autonomous vehicles that address actual transit needs. And
  • US and UK parking groups join forces
    November 11, 2022
    Partnership to support military veterans working in transport industry takes shape
  • Machine vision standards definition moves forward with establishment of new forum
    December 3, 2012
    The new Future Standards Forum will homogenise standards develop in the machine vision and partnering sectors. Here, machine vision industry experts discuss developments. By Jason Barnes At the Vision Show, which took place in Stuttgart at the beginning of November, the European Machine Vision Association, the US’s Automated Imaging Association and the Japan Industrial Imaging Association (JIIA) established a joint initiative, the Future Standards Forum (FSF). This, said the EMVA’s President Toni Ventura, a