Verizon and HERE partner for 5G-powered location services
The future of location services and autonomous vehicles will depend on powerful and expansive 5G networks, like Verizon’s.
As a global leader in mapping and location platform services, we at HERE are excited to announce our partnership with Verizon to continue to explore how 5G will enable new developments in location technology and autonomous vehicles. We already know that the future of driving is connected. Autonomous or not, it isn’t enough for cars to collect data around them using cameras and sensors — they must have a means of communicating with each other and other road-based infrastructure.
We will become Verizon’s preferred enterprise partner in location services, providing Verizon with access to the wide range of data, SDKs, and APIs collected and developed by HERE. Our partnership with Verizon will be focused on co-innovation for use cases involving problems that connected driving could solve to benefit industries from automotive and smart cities, to transport and logistics.
“5G is the future, and the scale and reach of the Verizon 5G network will enable widespread, higher-bandwidth, low-latency connectivity necessary for more precise positioning,” said Edzard Overbeek, CEO of HERE. “Our partnership with Verizon not only allows us to tap into the innovation potential of 5G, but also highlights what is possible when telecommunications meet location intelligence: connected services that will make our world safer and more efficient.”
Why we need 5G
The two proof-of-concepts that we and Verizon will begin development on are:
Collision Avoidance aims to increase pedestrian safety and driver awareness through a network that combines our HD Live Map’s real-time map data and Live Sense computer vision technology. This would create a vehicle-to-infrastructure network capable of identifying vehicles, pedestrians, and hazards from an onboard camera or mounted mobile phone — and sending that information to Verizon’s MEC system to create predictive travel paths — alerting the driver if a collision is detected. For all of this data to be gathered and transferred in high-enough fidelity and low-enough latency to be useful to the driver requires the speed and bandwidth of Verizon’s 5G network.
The Visual Positioning Service would enable near-instantaneous identification of specific locations using image capture — without a GPS signal. Our 3D positioning algorithms will analyze images or video for landmarks and other data against our extensive location database. Happening through Verizon’s 5G network and Multi-Access Edge Computing in near real time will allow sub-meter accurate positioning without the need of a remote server, and in urban canyons or signal deserts that GPS and other signal-based technologies can’t reach.
Beyond these proof-of-concepts, the increased speed and capacity of Verizon’s 5G network will allow development and spread of other location and driving technologies as we get nearer towards our shared goal of fully autonomous vehicles and zero traffic fatalities. To see what we’re already working on, explore our wide range of location solutions.
Originally published at https://360.here.com on January 6, 2020.
