Tesla may be using Model S cars to make GPS maps, but Toyota is ready to roll out a true real-time Google Street View.
Toyota Tuesday that it will showcase a new “high-precision” mapping system at the Consumer Electronics Show next month. The mapping system will leverage the high-definition digital cameras — combined with GPS units — that are already built into countless vehicles on the road today.
Video and GPS data are collected at Toyota, "where they are automatically merged, corrected and updated to create highly accurate road maps covering a large area," according to Toyota.
Toyota is producing these constantly updated and detailed visual maps for self-driving cars because autonomous vehicles will need to know road conditions, traffic flow, and traffic signs. And if the cars know these things before they even encounter them – even better.
Many of the high-definition maps available today are outdated and rarely updated, which would leave your self-driving Toyota to its fate. A constantly updated map will prevent this from happening at some point in the future.
Although Toyota will initially limit this high-precision mapping data collection to expressway traffic, it hopes to expand it to regular roads in the future.
When that happens, these real-time maps could help you find a parking spot with real-time notifications. Imagine your car saying “a spot just opened up on the first side street” once it receives the signal from the cloud. You can see exactly what we’re talking about. This technology will have huge applications, and maybe some of them we haven’t even imagined yet.
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