Can We Trust Our Maps? An Evaluation of Road Changes and a Dataset for Map Validation

Detailed high-precision maps have proven to be essential for highly automated driving (HAD). Nevertheless, the issue of validation of such a detailed map has hardly been covered yet. To be a reliable complement for noisy sensors and probabilistic algorithms, a map has to be validated on the fly using data from onboard sensors on a level of detail much higher than previously tried. For detailed high-precision maps, needed for HAD tasks such as localization, the issue of outdated maps has not been examined yet. To estimate its extent, we reason why some road changes matter more than others and use this distinction to analyze almost 80 km of German highways for changes that render a map outdated. Our evaluation reveals almost 200 major road changes, outdating the maps of more than 32 km (41 %). Observed changes include renewals of lane markings, guardrails and whole road surfaces as well as comnlete reconstructions. Further on, to facilitate the research of map validation concepts, we publish a dataset consisting of major map features of the more than 80 km of German highways which we examined for changes. Finally, we propose the idea of using high-resolution aerial images as easily accessible source for geo-referenced data.