Storage of shard data

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12105702-B2
Application number	US-202318457754-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Aug 29, 2023
Priority date	Mar 31, 2021
Publication date	Oct 1, 2024
Grant date	Oct 1, 2024

Abstract

A method for storing shard data and data formats for storing shard data are proposed. Shard data entries are generated and stored, wherein each shard data entry comprises a definition of one or more semantic objects covered by the shard data entry. Shard metadata is generated and stored, wherein the metadata comprises references to the shard data entries and, for each of the shard data entries, data representative of a bounding box indicative of an area in a geographical area that is covered by the shard data entry.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
determining semantic objects to be stored in a shard;
generating a shard file to be stored in a file storage system, wherein the shard file includes data of the semantic objects for the shard;
generating shard metadata for the shard, wherein the shard metadata includes:
(1) a unique string value representing a name of the shard, the unique string value comprising a non-unique string value representing a subtype of the shard and a sequence number; and
(2) floating point values defining a polygonal shape indicative of an area that is covered by the semantic objects of the shard;

generating a shard metadata file having the shard metadata for the shard to be stored in the file storage system; and
delivering the shard file to one or more clients using the shard metadata file, wherein the one or more clients include one or more of: an autonomous vehicle, a vehicle, and a computer environment, and wherein delivering the shard file comprises:
receiving filter data that is requested by the one or more clients, wherein the filter data is indicative of map data and a route planned for traversal by the one or more clients and the filter data includes bounding box information corresponding to the requested map data;
temporarily enlarging the polygonal shape of the shard by a configurable padding zone based on a distance of objects that may affect autonomous vehicle behavior; and
correlating the filter data against the shard metadata file having the enlarged polygonal shape to determine whether the shard file is relevant to the filter data.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein determining the semantic objects to be stored in a shard comprises looking up the semantic objects for the shard in a shard-to-object relations database.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the shard metadata further includes (3) an integer value as an identifier of the shard, the integer value being used as a foreign key to a shard-to-object relations database.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein:
the polygonal shape is a bounding box; and
the floating point values comprise a minimum x-coordinate, a maximum x-coordinate, a minimum y-coordinate and a maximum y-coordinate.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein the shard metadata file includes shard metadata corresponding to other shards.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein a filename of the shard file includes the non-unique string value representing the subtype of the shard.

7. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the filter data includes information specifying an area corresponding to the requested map data for which shard data is not available, and delivering monolithic map data to the one or more clients.

8. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the filter data comprises information for selecting a specific layer of map data, the specific layer including at least one of a semantic mapping layer, a map priors layer, and a real-time information layer.

9. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the shard metadata file includes a reference to the shard file.

10. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the subtype indicates the shard being related to a type of a guiding section used in generating the shard.

11. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the subtype indicates the shard being related to city-wide objects, indicative of the shard including city-wide objects.

12. The method according to claim 1 , wherein the subtype indicates the shard being related to experiments for simulation purposes.

13. One or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media comprising instruction for execution which, when executed by a processor, are operable to perform operations, the operations comprising:
determining, from a shard-to-object relations database, semantic objects to be stored in a shard;
generating a shard file to be stored in a file storage system, wherein the shard file includes data of the semantic objects for the shard;
generating shard metadata for the shard, wherein the shard metadata includes:
(1) an integer value as an identifier of the shard, the integer value being used as a foreign key to the shard-to-object relations database;
(2) a unique string value representing a name of the shard, the unique string value comprising a non-unique string value representing a subtype of the shard and a sequence number; and
(3) floating point values defining a polygonal shape indicative of an area that is covered by the semantic objects of the shard;

generating a shard metadata file having the shard metadata for the shard to be stored in the file storage system; and
delivering the shard file to one or more clients using the shard metadata file, wherein the one or more clients include one or more of: an autonomous vehicle, a vehicle, and a computer environment, and wherein delivering the shard file comprises:
receiving filter data that is requested by the one or more clients, wherein the filter data is indicative of map data and a route planned for traversal by the one or more clients and the filter data includes bounding box information corresponding to the requested map data;
temporarily enlarging the polygonal shape of the shard by a configurable padding zone based on a distance of objects that may affect autonomous vehicle behavior; and
correlating the filter data against the shard metadata file having the enlarged polygonal shape to determine whether the shard file is relevant to the filter data.

14. The one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media of claim 13 , wherein a filename of the shard file includes the non-unique string value representing the subtype of the shard.

15. A computer system comprising:
one or more processors;
one or more non-transient computer-readable storage devices to store instructions;
one or more database storage devices to store shard data comprising:
semantic objects linked to a shard; and
shard metadata corresponding to the shard, wherein the shard metadata for a shard includes: (1) a unique string value representing a name of the shard, the unique string value comprising a non-unique string value representing a subtype of the shard and a sequence number; and (2) floating point values defining a polygonal shape indicative of an area that is covered by the semantic objects of the shard;

wherein the instructions encode a database exporter to export the shard data from the one or more database storage devices; and
a file storage system to:
receive shard data exported by the database exporter and store the shard data as a shard file, wherein a shard file includes data for the semantic objects linked to the shard; and
receive shard metadata exported by the database exporter and store the shard metadata and other shard metadata for other shards as a shard metadata file;

wherein the instructions further encode an uploader to deliver the shard file to one or more clients using the shard metadata file, the one or more clients including one or more of: an autonomous vehicle, a vehicle, and a computer environment, wherein delivering the shard file by the uploader comprises:
receiving filter data that is requested by the one or more clients, wherein the filter data is indicative of map data and a route planned for traversal by the one or more clients and the filter data includes bounding box information corresponding to the requested map data;
temporarily enlarging the polygonal shape of the shard by a configurable padding zone based on a distance of objects that may affect autonomous vehicle behavior; and
correlating the filter data against the shard metadata file havin

Assignees

• Gm Cruise Holdings Llc

Inventors

• Chernov Mikhail
• Sun Xiaojun

Classifications

• G05D1/43

  Control of position or course in two dimensions [2D] · CPC title

• G06F16/29 Primary

  Geographical information databases · CPC title

• G05D1/021

  specially adapted to land vehicles · CPC title

• G06F16/2379 Primary

  Updates performed during online database operations; commit processing · CPC title