MARTA

Digital Maps Aimed at Road Topology Acquisition

Project granted on the call: Proyectos Estratégicos Orientados a la «Transición Ecológica y a la Transición Digital»

PROYECTO TED2021-129374A-I00

Road transport is undoubtedly one of the pillars of todays societies, being the dominant mode of transportation worldwide. However, the prevalent mobility models are also a significant source of social and economic problems such as traffic accidents, pollution, and road congestion. In this context, the EU has made an enormous effort to improve road infrastructures in the last decades, which has led to a considerable reduction in road accident rates. Efforts in recent years have been directed towards the improvement and efficient maintenance of these infrastructures.

This project seeks to go further in this direction, with the intention of creating a technological base of great capacity. The proposed solution will offer a high-definition digital mapping system, as well as tools for high-level abstraction that allow situations detection and classification.

The projects central objective is to develop an automated map digitisation technology using the most modern perception techniques, based on deep learning, from camera and LiDAR sources. A series of secondary objectives have also been identified to give the project a more innovative nature, such as the development of classification techniques to create more efficient and reliable maps, the development of representation techniques and efficient storage of these maps, as well as technologies to efficiently update these maps and provide situational information on the road environment.

The novelty of these maps lies in two main aspects: on the one hand, the fusion of data from different technologies and, on the other hand, the integration of semantic information. These two aspects make it possible to obtain a complete automated digitization of the environment in which the vehicle moves, generating semantically labelled point clouds.

The project compromise two years and it is supported by important stakeholders. Furthermore, other relevant scientific entities have shown interest in the proposal and have offered their support. To achieve these ambitious objectives, the MARTA project is led by internationally recognised researchers and a strong working team of 10 experienced engineers and physicists that makes a powerful team, which combines knowledge and dedication, with high capacities and proven experience in the sector.

The goals of the proposed project are strongly aligned with the thematic area of the digital transition. The development of algorithms for the automatic building of maps representing the traffic infrastructure has immediate applicability in various industrial sectors (e.g., road maintenance or automated driving). Furthermore, the research project comprises social objectives from the point of view of the decrease in accidents on the roads, but it is also worth noting that it is based on the development of disruptive technologies related to automation and artificial intelligence.

PARTNERS

Duración: desde 01/12/2022 hasta 30/06/2025

Financiado por MICIU/AEI /10.13039/501100011033 y por la Unión Europea NextGenerationEU/ PRTR