System and method for detecting a road works zone

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12460932-B2
Application number	US-202218077035-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 7, 2022
Priority date	Dec 7, 2022
Publication date	Nov 4, 2025
Grant date	Nov 4, 2025

Abstract

The disclosure provides a system, a method, and a computer program product for updating map data. The system, for example, receives, from one or more user equipment, at least one road works observation. The at least one road works observation is associated with a road works object. Further, the system, determines a first lane and a second lane. Further, the first lane is associated with the at least one road works observation and the second lane is associated with the road works object. Further, the system determines traffic density associated with a region in vicinity of the road works object. Further, the system detects the road works zone based on the first lane, the second lane and the traffic density.

First claim

We claim:

1 . A system for improving an accuracy of detecting a road works zone by mitigating sensor occlusion, the system comprising:
a memory configured to store computer-executable instructions; and at least one processor configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to:
receive, from one or more sensors of one or more user equipment, at least one road works observation associated with a road works object;
determine a first lane and a second lane, wherein the first lane is associated with the one or more user equipment capturing the at least one road works observation and the second lane is associated with the road works object, wherein the determining of the first lane and the second lane comprises one or more map matching techniques based on respective locations of the one or more user equipment and of the road works object;
determine traffic density associated with a region in vicinity of the road works object;
compare the determined traffic density of the region with a predefined threshold;
filter the at least one road works observation associated with the road works object based on the comparison;
detect the road works zone based on the first lane, the second lane and the determined traffic density; and
assign a weight to the at least one road works observation based on the comparison, the first lane, and the second lane,
wherein the weight is proportional to a distance between the first lane and the second lane based on the comparison indicating that the determined traffic density is more than the predefined threshold.

2 . The system of claim 1 , wherein to filter the at least one road works observation, the at least one processor is further configured to:
based on determining that the determined traffic density of the region is above the predefined threshold, retain the at least one road works observation for detection of the road works zone when the first lane is adjacent to the second lane.

3 . The system of claim 1 , wherein to filter the at least one road works observation, the at least one processor is further configured to:
based on determining that the determined traffic density of the region is below or equal the predefined threshold, retain the at least one road works observation for detection of the road works zone irrespective of the first lane being adjacent to the second lane or not.

4 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is configured to:
assign a first weight value to the at least one road works observation, when the first lane is adjacent to the second lane; assign a second weight value to the at least one road works observation, when the first lane is farther than a lane adjacent to the second lane, such that the second weight value is lesser than the first weight value.

5 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to:
assign a constant weight to the at least one road works observation when the determined traffic density is lesser than or equal to the predefined threshold.

6 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the road works zone is a construction related road work zone.

7 . The system of claim 1 , the at least one processor is further configured to:
determine a first location associated with the at least one road works observation, wherein the first location is a location of the corresponding user equipment at a time of capturing the road works observation; determine a second location associated with the road works object based on the first location and one or more positional offsets applied to the first location; and map match the first location to identify the first lane and map match the second location to identify the second lane.

8 . The system of claim 1 , wherein to determine the traffic density of the region in vicinity of the road works object, the at least one processor is further configured to perform at least one of:
obtain at least one of: real time traffic feed data, traffic volume estimations, probe counts, and computer vision analysis on image data associated with a plurality of road works observations of road works in the region.

9 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to update a map database based on the detection of the road works zone.

10 . The system of claim 1 , wherein the at least one processor is further configured to generate one or more navigation instructions for the one or more user equipment based on the detection of the road works zone.

11 . A method for improving an accuracy of detecting a road works zone by mitigating sensor occlusion, the method comprising:
receiving, from one or more sensors of one or more user equipment, at least one road works observation associated with a road works object; determining a first lane and a second lane, wherein the first lane is associated with the one or more user equipment capturing the at least one road works observation and the second lane is associated with the road works object, wherein the determining of the first lane and the second lane comprises one or more map matching techniques based on respective locations of the one or more user equipment and of the road works object; determining traffic density associated with a region in vicinity of the at least one road works observation; comparing the determined traffic density of the region with a predefined threshold; filtering the at least one road works observation associated with the road works object based on the comparison; detecting the road works zone based on the first lane, the second lane and the determined traffic density; and assigning a weight to the at least one road works observation based on the comparison, the first lane, and the second lane, wherein the weight is proportional to a distance between the first lane and the second lane based on the comparison indicating that the determined traffic density is more than the predefined threshold.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein filtering the at least one road works observation, comprises:
based on determining that the determined traffic density of the region is above the predefined threshold, retaining the at least one road works observation for detection of the road works zone when the first lane is adjacent to the second lane.

13 . The method of claim 11 , wherein filtering the at least one road works observation, comprises:
based on determining that the determined traffic density of the region is below or equal to the predefined threshold, retaining the at least one road works observation for detection of the road works zone irrespective of the first lane being adjacent to the second lane or not.

14 . The method of claim 11 , wherein filtering the at least one road works observation, further comprises:
assigning a weight to the at least one road works observation based on the comparison, the first lane, and the second lane.

15 . A computer program product comprising a non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon computer executable instructions which when executed by at least one processor, cause the processor to carry out operations for improving an accuracy of detecting a road works zone by mitigating sensor occlusion, the operations comprising:
receiving, from one or more sensors of one or more user equipment, at least one road works observation associated with a road works object; determining a first lane and a second lane, wherein the first lane is associated with the one or more user equipment capturing the at least one road works observation and the second lane is associated with the

Assignees

• Here Global Bv

Inventors

• Stenneth Leon
• Bernhardt Bruce
• Raut Advait Mohan
• Xu Jingwei
• Guan Yuxin

Classifications

• G01C21/3815

  Road data · CPC title

• G08G1/0137

  for specific applications · CPC title

• G06V20/54

  of traffic, e.g. cars on the road, trains or boats · CPC title

• G06V20/588

  Recognition of the road, e.g. of lane markings; Recognition of the vehicle driving pattern in relation to the road · CPC title

• G01C21/3407 Primary

  specially adapted for specific applications · CPC title