Disclosure of Invention
To this end, the present invention provides a new vehicle navigation solution in an effort to solve or at least alleviate at least one of the problems presented above.
According to one aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of assisting in vehicle navigation, the method comprising the steps of: acquiring road data in a preset range, wherein the road data comprises static and/or dynamic information of each object in the preset range; identifying one or more vehicles and vehicle motion information in each object based on the road data; and transmitting the vehicle movement information and road data to the one or more vehicles so that the one or more vehicles perform vehicle navigation.
Optionally, in the assisted vehicle navigation method according to the present invention, the step of acquiring road data within a predetermined range includes: acquiring pre-stored static information about a predetermined range of the track; obtaining static and/or dynamic information of each object within a predetermined range by using each sensor deployed in the drive test sensing device; the static information stored in advance and the information obtained by the respective sensors are combined to generate the road data.
Optionally, in the assisted vehicle navigation method according to the present invention, the step of acquiring road data within a predetermined range further includes: receiving vehicle running information sent by a vehicle in a preset range through a preset communication mode; and combining the static information stored in advance, the information obtained by the respective sensors, and the received vehicle running information to generate road data.
Optionally, in the assisted vehicle navigation method according to the present invention, the step of acquiring static information about a predetermined range includes: determining the geographic position of the road side sensing equipment; and obtaining static information from the server within a predetermined range of the geographic location.
Optionally, in the assisted vehicle navigation method according to the present invention, the identifying one or more vehicles in the respective objects and the vehicle motion information step includes: determining a vehicle object belonging to the vehicle and motion information thereof based on the motion characteristics of the objects; and an identification identifying each vehicle object.
Optionally, the auxiliary vehicle navigation method according to the present invention further comprises the steps of: receiving a navigation request sent by a navigation vehicle in a preset range through a preset communication mode; matching a navigation vehicle from the identified one or more vehicles; and transmitting the vehicle motion information of the matched navigation vehicle and the road data to the navigation vehicle in response to the navigation request so as to perform vehicle navigation.
Optionally, in the assisted vehicle navigation method according to the present invention, the communication means includes one or more of the following: V2X, 5G, 4G and 3G communications.
Optionally, in the assisted vehicle navigation method according to the present invention, each object includes one or more of the following objects: lane lines, guardrails, isolation belts, vehicles, pedestrians and sprinklers; the static and/or dynamic information includes one or more of the following: location, distance, speed, angular velocity, license plate, type and size, etc.
Optionally, in the assisted vehicle navigation method according to the present invention, the sensor in the road side sensing apparatus includes one or more of the following: millimeter wave radar, laser radar, camera, infrared probe.
Optionally, in the assisted vehicle navigation method according to the present invention, the vehicle travel information includes one or more of the following: current time, size, speed, acceleration, angular velocity, and position.
Optionally, the auxiliary vehicle navigation method according to the present invention further comprises the steps of: after determining a vehicle that matches the navigation vehicle, calculating a navigation plan for the navigation vehicle based on vehicle motion information of the matched vehicle and road data; and transmitting the calculated navigation plan to the navigation vehicle.
Alternatively, in the auxiliary vehicle navigation method according to the present invention, the navigation planning is performed in a lane on a road as a basic unit.
Optionally, the auxiliary vehicle navigation method according to the present invention further comprises the steps of: and receiving a clock synchronization request of the navigation vehicle and performing clock synchronization.
Optionally, the method of assisting vehicle navigation according to the invention is further adapted to be performed in a road side awareness apparatus deployed at a road location or in a server coupled to said road side awareness apparatus.
According to another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method of assisting vehicle navigation performed in a vehicle traveling on a road on which a roadside sensing device is disposed, the method comprising the steps of: sending a navigation request; receiving vehicle motion information determined by a road side sensing device and road data of a road section associated with the road side sensing device, which are returned in response to the navigation request; acquiring a navigation plan generated based on the vehicle motion information and the road data; and navigating the vehicle based on the navigation plan.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a road side awareness apparatus deployed at a road location, the apparatus comprising: a sensor group adapted to obtain static and dynamic information of each object within a predetermined range; a storage unit adapted to store the road data including static and dynamic information of each object within a predetermined range; and a computing unit adapted to perform the assisted vehicle navigation method according to the invention.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vehicle navigation system including: the road side sensing devices are deployed at the side positions of the road; and a vehicle that runs on a road and performs the auxiliary vehicle navigation method according to the present invention.
According to yet another aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a computing device. The computing device includes at least one processor and a memory storing program instructions, wherein the program instructions are configured to be executed by the at least one processor and include instructions for performing the above-described assisted vehicle navigation method.
According to still another aspect of the present invention, there is also provided a readable storage medium storing program instructions that, when read and executed by a computing device, cause the computing device to perform the above-described assisted vehicle navigation method.
According to the vehicle navigation scheme provided by the invention, the perception capability of the road side perception equipment is fully utilized, and a lane-based navigation method can be provided for the vehicle.
Detailed Description
Exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure will be described in more detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings. While exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure are shown in the drawings, it should be understood that the present disclosure may be embodied in various forms and should not be limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the disclosure to those skilled in the art.
Fig. 1 shows a schematic diagram of a vehicle navigation system 100 according to an embodiment of the invention. As shown in fig. 1, the vehicle navigation system 100 includes a vehicle 110 and a roadside sensing device 200. The vehicle 110 travels on a road 140. The roadway 140 includes a plurality of lanes 150. During the course that the vehicle 110 can travel on the road 140, different lanes 150 can be switched according to road conditions and traveling targets. The road side sensing apparatus 200 is disposed around the road and collects various information within a predetermined range around the road side sensing apparatus 200, particularly road data related to the road, using various sensors that it has.
The roadside sensing device 200 has a predetermined coverage. Depending on the coverage area and road condition of each road side sensing apparatus 200, a sufficient number of road side sensing apparatuses 200 may be disposed on both sides of the road, and full coverage may be achieved for the entire road. Of course, according to one embodiment, instead of realizing full coverage of the entire road, the road-side sensing apparatus 200 may be deployed at the feature points (turns, intersections, bifurcation) of each road, so as to obtain feature data about the road. The present invention is not limited to a particular number of road side awareness apparatuses 200 and coverage of roads.
When the roadside sensing apparatus 200 is deployed, the position of the sensing apparatus 200 to be deployed is first calculated according to the coverage area of the individual roadside sensing apparatus 200 and the condition of the road 140. The coverage area of the roadside sensing device 200 depends on at least the arrangement height of the sensing device 200 and the effective distance sensed by the sensors in the sensing device 200, etc. And the condition of the road 140 includes the road length, the number of lanes 150, the road curvature, the gradient, etc. The deployment location of the awareness apparatus 200 may be calculated using any manner known in the art.
After the deployment location is determined, the roadside awareness devices 200 are deployed at the determined location. Since the data that the roadside sensing device 200 needs to sense contains motion data of a large number of objects, clock synchronization of the roadside sensing device 200 is performed, that is, the time of each sensing device 200 is kept consistent with the time of the vehicle 110 and the cloud platform.
Subsequently, the location of each deployed road side aware device 200 is determined. Since the sensing device 200 is to provide a high-precision vehicle navigation function for the vehicle 110 traveling at a high speed on the road 140, the position of the sensing device 200 must be high-precision. There are a number of ways to calculate the high accuracy absolute position of the sensing device 200. According to one embodiment, a global satellite navigation system (GNSS) may be utilized to determine a high-precision position.
The road side sensing device 200 uses its sensors to collect and sense the static conditions (lane lines 120, guardrails, isolation zones, etc.) and dynamic conditions (running vehicles 110, pedestrians 130 and sprinklers) of the road in its coverage area, and fuses the sensed data of different sensors to form the road data of the road. The road data comprises static and dynamic information of all objects within the coverage of the perceiving device 200, in particular within the road-related area. The road side awareness apparatus 200 may then determine the individual vehicles within its coverage area and the movement information of each vehicle based on the road data.
Vehicles 110 that enter the coverage area of one of the roadside awareness apparatuses 200 may communicate with the roadside awareness apparatus 200. One exemplary communication scheme is the V2X communication scheme. Of course, the mobile internet provided by the mobile communication service provider may communicate with the roadside sensing device 200 using a mobile communication manner such as 5G, 4G, and 3G. In view of the fact that the vehicle is traveling at a high speed, the time delay of communication is required to be as short as possible, and the V2X communication method is adopted in the general embodiment of the present invention. However, any communication scheme that can meet the time delay requirements required by the present invention is within the scope of the present invention.
The vehicle 110 may receive vehicle motion information related to the vehicle 110 and road data of the section of road from the road side sensing device 200 and use the data to perform vehicle navigation.
The vehicle 110 may receive vehicle motion information associated with the vehicle 110 and road data for the segment of the road in various ways. In one implementation, vehicles 110 entering the coverage area of the roadside awareness devices 200 may automatically receive such information and data to navigate. In another implementation, the vehicle 110 may issue a navigation request, and the road side awareness apparatus 200 transmits vehicle motion information related to the vehicle 110 and road data of the section of the road to the vehicle 110 in response to the request, so that the vehicle 110 navigates.
The present invention is not limited to the specific manner in which the vehicle 110 receives the vehicle motion information and the road data for the section of road, and all manners in which the vehicle motion information and the road data for the section of road can be received and navigated accordingly are within the scope of the present invention.
Optionally, the vehicle navigation system 100 further comprises a server 160. Although only one server 160 is shown in fig. 1, it should be understood that server 160 may be a cloud service platform comprised of multiple servers. Each of the road side perception devices 100 transmits perceived road data to the server 160. The server 160 may combine the road data based on the location of each of the road side sensing devices 100, thereby forming the road data of the entire road. The server 160 may further process the road data of the road to form information required for vehicle navigation, such as traffic conditions of the entire road, sudden accident sections, expected transit time, etc.
Considering the requirements of computing power and time delay, the navigation plan may be calculated at the vehicle 110, the road side awareness apparatus 200, or the server 160 as desired. The navigation plan may be calculated based on vehicle motion information of the navigation vehicle and road data of a certain section of the road. The most computationally intensive server 160, but requires data to be sent to the server 160 for computation. The vehicle 110 may not be computationally efficient, but directly utilizes real-time operating information of the vehicle locally to calculate the navigation plan, and thus has accurate navigation planning results. While the navigation plan is calculated on the road side awareness apparatus 200, this does not require network transmission of large amounts of data, with the best time delay.
The present invention may choose which device to perform the navigation planning calculation in accordance with the specific situation applied. Wherever navigation planning calculations are performed, these are within the scope of the present invention.
The formed road data and vehicle motion information of the entire road may be transmitted to each of the roadside sensing devices 200, or the road-related data and vehicle motion information of a corresponding section of the road of several roadside sensing devices 200 adjacent to a certain roadside sensing device 200 may be transmitted to the roadside sensing device 200. In this way, the vehicle 110 can obtain a larger range of road data from the roadside sensing device 200. Of course, the vehicle 110 may obtain road data and vehicle motion information directly from the server 160 without passing through the roadside sensing device 200.
If the road side awareness devices 200 are deployed on all roads in an area and the road side awareness devices 200 are transmitting road data to the server 160, a navigational indication of road traffic in the area may be formed at the server 160. Vehicle 110 may receive the navigation instructions from server 160 and navigate accordingly.
Fig. 2 shows a schematic diagram of a road side perception device 200 according to an embodiment of the invention. As shown in fig. 2, the roadside sensing device 200 includes a communication unit 210, a sensor group 220, a storage unit 230, and a calculation unit 240.
The roadside sensing device 200 communicates with each vehicle 110 entering its coverage area to provide a vehicle navigation service to the vehicle 110 and to receive vehicle travel information of the vehicle from the vehicle 110. While the roadside awareness device 200 also needs to communicate with the server 160. The communication unit 210 provides a communication function for the roadside sensing device 200. The communication unit 210 may employ various communication methods including, but not limited to, ethernet, V2X, 5G, 4G, and 3G mobile communication, etc., as long as the communication methods can complete data communication with as little time delay as possible. In one embodiment, the road side sensing device 200 may communicate with the vehicle 110 entering its coverage area using V2X, and the road side sensing device 200 may communicate with the server 160 using, for example, a high-speed internet.
The sensor group 220 includes various sensors such as a radar sensor such as a millimeter wave radar 222, a laser radar 224, and an image sensor such as a camera 226 and an infrared probe 228 having a light supplementing function. For the same object, various sensors may obtain different properties of the object, e.g., a radar sensor may make object velocity and acceleration measurements, while an image sensor may obtain object shape, relative angle, etc.
The sensor group 220 senses the static condition (lane lines 120, guardrails, isolation belts, etc.) and the dynamic condition (running vehicles 110, pedestrians 130, and throwers) of the road within the coverage area with the respective sensors, and stores the data collected and sensed by the respective sensors into the storage unit 230.
The calculation unit 240 fuses the data sensed by the respective sensors to form road data of the section of road, and also stores the road data in 234. In addition, the computing unit 240 may further perform data analysis based on the road data to identify one or more vehicles therein and vehicle motion information. Both these data and information may be stored in the storage unit 230 for transmission to the vehicle 110 or the server 160 via the communication unit 210.
In addition, the storage unit 230 may also store various calculation models, such as a collision detection model, a license plate recognition model, a navigation planning model, and the like. These computational models may be used by the computing unit 240 to implement the corresponding steps in the method 300 described below with reference to fig. 3.
FIG. 3 illustrates a schematic diagram of a method 300 of assisting in vehicle navigation according to one embodiment of the invention. The assisted vehicle navigation method 300 is adapted to be executed in the road side sensing apparatus 200 shown in fig. 2 or in the server 160. When executed in the server 160, it is necessary to transmit the related data generated or received by the roadside sensing device 200 to the server 160 in order to perform the related process in the server 160.
As shown in fig. 3, the assisted vehicle navigation method 300 starts at step S310.
In step S310, road data within a predetermined range of the road position is acquired. As described above with reference to fig. 1, the road side sensing apparatus 200 is generally fixedly disposed near a certain road, and thus has a corresponding road position. In addition, the roadside sensing device 200 has a predetermined coverage area depending at least on the arrangement height of the sensing device 200 and the effective distance or the like that the sensors in the sensing device 200 sense. Once the road side perception device 200 is deployed at a certain road side, the predetermined range of the road that can be covered by the perception device can be determined according to the specific location, altitude and perceived effective distance of the perception device and the road.
The roadside sensing apparatus 200 collects and/or senses static conditions (lane lines 120, guardrails, isolation zones, etc.) and dynamic conditions (traveling vehicles 110, pedestrians 130, and sprinklers) of a road within a coverage area using various sensors that it has to obtain and store various sensor data.
As described above, the roadside sensing device 200 includes various sensors such as radar sensors such as millimeter wave radar 222, laser radar 224, and image sensors such as a camera 226 and an infrared probe 228 having a light supplementing function, and the like. For the same object, various sensors may obtain different properties of the object, for example, a radar sensor may make object velocity and acceleration measurements, while an image sensor may obtain object shape and relative angle, etc.
In step S310, processing and fusion may be performed based on the obtained various sensor raw data, thereby forming unified road data. In one embodiment, step S310 may further include sub-step S312. In step S312, static information about a predetermined range of road positions, which is stored in advance, is acquired. After the road side sensing device is deployed at a certain position on the road, the road range covered by the sensing device is fixed. Static information of the predetermined range, such as road width, number of lanes, turning radius, etc., within the range can be obtained. There are a number of ways to obtain static information of a road. In one embodiment, this static information may be pre-stored in the sensing device at the time the sensing device is deployed. In another embodiment, the location information of the perceived device may be obtained first, followed by a request containing the location information to the server 160, so that the server 160 returns static information of the relevant road range upon request.
Subsequently, in step S314, the raw sensor data are processed according to different sensors, respectively, to form sensing data such as ranging, speed measurement, type, size identification, etc. Next, in step S316, based on the road static data obtained in step S312, in different cases, other sensor data is calibrated with different sensor data as a reference, and finally unified road data is formed.
Steps S312-S136 describe one way to obtain road data. The invention is not limited to the particular manner in which the data of the individual sensors are fused to form the road data. This approach is within the scope of the present invention as long as the road data contains static and dynamic information for various objects within the predetermined range of the road location.
According to one embodiment, each vehicle 110 entering the coverage area of the roadside sensing device 200 actively communicates with the sensing device 200 via various communication means (e.g., V2X). Accordingly, the vehicle 110 transmits the vehicle travel information of the vehicle to the sensing device 200 as described in step S318. The running information of the vehicle includes running information that the vehicle has while running, and includes, for example, the current time at which the running information is generated, the size, speed, acceleration, angular velocity, and position of the vehicle. The method S310 further includes a step S319 in which the vehicle travel information obtained in step S318 is further fused on the basis of the road data formed in step S316 to form new road data.
Next, in step S320, one or more vehicles within the coverage of the sensing unit and movement information of the vehicles are identified based on the road data obtained in step S310. The identification in step S320 includes identification of two aspects. The identification of one aspect is vehicle identification, i.e. identifying which objects in the road data are vehicle objects. Since the vehicle objects have different movement characteristics, such as faster speed, travel in one direction on the lane, no collision is typically transmitted with other objects, etc. A conventional classification detection model or a model based on deep learning may be constructed based on these motion features, and the constructed model may be applied to road data to determine motion features such as a vehicle object and a motion trajectory of the vehicle object in the road data.
The identification of another aspect is identifying a vehicle identification. For the identified vehicle object, its vehicle identification is further determined. One way to determine the identity of a vehicle is to determine the unique license plate of the vehicle, for example by means of image recognition or the like. When the license plate of the vehicle cannot be identified, another way to determine the vehicle identification may be to generate a unique mark of the vehicle by combining the size, type, position information, and running speed of the vehicle object. This vehicle identification is the unique identification of the vehicle object within this road segment and is used to distinguish it from other vehicle objects. The vehicle identification is used in subsequent data transmissions and is communicated among the different road side sensing devices within the road for overall analysis.
Subsequently, in step S330, a data request transmitted by a navigation vehicle 110 desiring to navigate within the coverage of the roadside sensing device 200 is received. Since the road data generated by the road side sensing apparatus 200 contains dynamic and static data of the road, navigation planning can be performed based on the road data, and the navigation vehicle 110 itself does not generate the road data, so the navigation vehicle 110 needs to transmit a request to the road side sensing apparatus 200.
Subsequently, in step S340, after receiving the data request issued by the navigation vehicle 110, it is necessary to match the requesting navigation vehicle 110 with all vehicles within the coverage area of the sensing device 200, thereby determining which vehicle within the coverage area issued the data request.
The vehicle matching can be performed by a plurality of matching modes or combination of license plate matching, driving speed and type matching, fuzzy matching of position information and the like. According to one embodiment, the vehicle 110 may bind license plate information via V2X or application verification, and this license plate information may in turn be matched to vehicle data of a corresponding license plate in the road side sensing device and server, thereby achieving license plate matching.
After determining the vehicle matched with the navigation vehicle in step S340, the vehicle motion information matched to the vehicle, which has been determined in step S320, and the road data determined in step S310 are transmitted to the navigation vehicle 110 in step S350 so that the navigation vehicle performs vehicle navigation.
It should be noted that the above steps S330 and S340 are not essential steps of the present invention. The vehicle 110 may receive vehicle motion information associated with the vehicle 110 and road data for the segment of the road in various ways. In one implementation, vehicles 110 entering the coverage area of the roadside awareness devices 200 may automatically receive such information and data to navigate. In another implementation, the vehicle 110 may issue a navigation request, and the road side awareness apparatus 200 transmits vehicle motion information related to the vehicle 110 and road data of the section of the road to the vehicle 110 in response to the request, so that the vehicle 110 navigates. The present invention is not limited to the specific manner in which the vehicle 110 receives the vehicle motion information and the road data for the section of road, and all manners in which the vehicle motion information and the road data for the section of road can be received and navigated accordingly are within the scope of the present invention.
Thus, in one embodiment, in step S350, vehicle motion information associated with one or more vehicles 110 identified in step S320 may be actively transmitted along with road data for the section of road for navigation of those vehicles 110.
In addition, optionally, after the vehicle motion information and the road data are transmitted to the navigation vehicle 110 in step S350, in order to facilitate navigation of the navigation vehicle 110, the method 300 further includes step S360. In step S360, a navigation plan is calculated for the navigation vehicle based on the vehicle motion information of the matched vehicle and the road data. Navigation planning may be performed in a variety of ways known in the art and are within the scope of the present invention. Alternatively, the vehicle motion information and the road data may be transmitted to the cloud server 160, and navigation plan calculation is performed at the cloud server 160, and the calculated navigation plan is obtained from the cloud server 160.
According to one embodiment of the invention, the navigation plan is a lane-level navigation path plan (this plan can also be calculated at the vehicle end). Because the road data contains static and dynamic data related to the lanes, lane-level avoidance can be performed according to the conditions of the roads (obstacles, fault vehicles, congestion lanes, accident lanes and the like) when the navigation path is planned, so that lane-level navigation path planning is realized.
In addition, when the navigation path planning is carried out, the overall vehicle data can be used as a basis, and the global optimal scheme of the whole road section is sought. And after global optimization, further determining a planned path for the navigation vehicle.
Since the server 160 includes road data of the entire road, a planned path of a certain navigation vehicle may be determined at the server 160 in consideration of global optimality of the entire road.
Subsequently, in step S370, the navigation plan calculated in step S360 is transmitted to the navigation vehicle 110 to guide the vehicle to navigate.
Additionally, optionally, time consistency is required as strict as possible due to navigation. For this reason, a navigation vehicle generally needs to be time-synchronized with a device that provides navigation path planning or navigation base data (i.e., movement information of the vehicle and road data). To this end, the method 300 further includes receiving a time synchronization request of the navigation vehicle and processing the received time synchronization request to ensure time consistency among the navigation vehicle 110, the road side awareness apparatus 200, and the server 160.
Fig. 4 shows a schematic diagram of a method 400 of assisting in vehicle navigation according to another embodiment of the invention. The vehicle navigation method 400 is adapted to be executed in a vehicle 110, and the vehicle 110 travels on a road where the roadside sensing device 200 is deployed. The method 400 includes step S410. In step S410, a navigation request is sent. The navigation request may be sent to the road side awareness apparatus 200 or the server 160. Both the sensing device 200 and the server 160 store vehicle motion information of each vehicle and road data of the associated road segments within the coverage area of the sensing device, so that navigation requests can be processed.
Subsequently, in step S420, the vehicle motion information determined by the road side sensing device and the road data of the road section associated with the road side sensing device, which are returned in response to the navigation request of step S410, are received. The specific manner in which the vehicle motion information and the road data are calculated if calculated has been described above with reference to the method step S320 of fig. 3, and will not be described in detail here.
Subsequently, in step S430, a navigation plan generated based on the vehicle motion information and the road data is acquired. As indicated above, the navigation plan may be generated in the vehicle 110, the road side awareness apparatus 200, and the server 160 as needed. Step S430 may obtain the navigation plan from the vehicle 110, the road side awareness apparatus 200, or the server 160 according to the need. As described above, the navigation plan is a lane-level navigation path plan. Because the road data contains static and dynamic data related to the lanes, lane-level avoidance can be performed according to the conditions of the roads (obstacles, fault vehicles, congestion lanes, accident lanes and the like) when the navigation path is planned, so that lane-level navigation path planning is realized.
Subsequently, in step S440, the navigation vehicle is guided to go to the destination according to the obtained navigation plan.
Alternatively, it is considered that the vehicle is usually traveling at a high speed, and the data transmission has a time delay. It is likely that the vehicle position sent by the sensing unit may have lagged. To this end, the method S400 further comprises a step S450, wherein the time difference is obtained by comparing the vehicle time instant with the vehicle data time instant perceived by the perceiving unit. And then in step S460, the vehicle position included in the vehicle motion information is adjusted to obtain the current actual position information of the navigation vehicle, based on the time difference, the vehicle speed, the acceleration, and the angular velocity included in the vehicle motion information.
In addition, optionally, in the case of V2X/5G communication between the vehicle and the sensing device 200, the time difference may be relatively small, typically within 50ms, in consideration of the high real-time performance of V2X communication, that is, the calculated accumulated error may be relatively small. In this case, in step S460, the real-time position adjustment of the vehicle may be performed from the data of the vehicle speed, acceleration, angular velocity, etc. acquired from the vehicle itself, enabling higher-accuracy lane-level navigation.
According to the vehicle navigation scheme provided by the invention, the perception capability of the road side unit can be fully utilized, and high-precision road data can be provided, so that lane-level navigation path planning can be provided.
It should be appreciated that in the above description of exemplary embodiments of the invention, various features of the invention are sometimes grouped together in a single embodiment, figure, or description thereof for the purpose of streamlining the disclosure and aiding in the understanding of one or more of the various inventive aspects. However, the disclosed method should not be construed as reflecting the intention that: i.e., the claimed invention requires more features than are expressly recited in each claim. Rather, as the following claims reflect, inventive aspects lie in less than all features of a single foregoing disclosed embodiment. Thus, the claims following the detailed description are hereby expressly incorporated into this detailed description, with each claim standing on its own as a separate embodiment of this invention.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the modules or units or components of the devices in the examples disclosed herein may be arranged in a device as described in this embodiment, or alternatively may be located in one or more devices different from the devices in this example. The modules in the foregoing examples may be combined into one module or may be further divided into a plurality of sub-modules.
Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the modules in the apparatus of the embodiments may be adaptively changed and disposed in one or more apparatuses different from the embodiments. The modules or units or components of the embodiments may be combined into one module or unit or component and, furthermore, they may be divided into a plurality of sub-modules or sub-units or sub-components. Any combination of all features disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), and all of the processes or units of any method or apparatus so disclosed, may be used in combination, except insofar as at least some of such features and/or processes or units are mutually exclusive. Each feature disclosed in this specification (including any accompanying claims, abstract and drawings), may be replaced by alternative features serving the same, equivalent or similar purpose, unless expressly stated otherwise.
Furthermore, those skilled in the art will appreciate that while some embodiments described herein include some features but not others included in other embodiments, combinations of features of different embodiments are meant to be within the scope of the invention and form different embodiments. For example, in the following claims, any of the claimed embodiments can be used in any combination.
Furthermore, some of the embodiments are described herein as methods or combinations of method elements that may be implemented by a processor of a computer system or by other means of performing the functions. Thus, a processor with the necessary instructions for implementing the described method or method element forms a means for implementing the method or method element. Furthermore, the elements of the apparatus embodiments described herein are examples of the following apparatus: the apparatus is for carrying out the functions performed by the elements for carrying out the objects of the invention.
As used herein, unless otherwise specified the use of the ordinal terms "first," "second," "third," etc., to describe a general object merely denote different instances of like objects, and are not intended to imply that the objects so described must have a given order, either temporally, spatially, in ranking, or in any other manner.
While the invention has been described with respect to a limited number of embodiments, those skilled in the art, having benefit of the above description, will appreciate that other embodiments are contemplated within the scope of the invention as described herein. Furthermore, it should be noted that the language used in the specification has been principally selected for readability and instructional purposes, and may not have been selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter. Accordingly, many modifications and variations will be apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the scope and spirit of the appended claims. The disclosure of the present invention is intended to be illustrative, but not limiting, of the scope of the invention, which is defined by the appended claims.