Santa Clara, Calif., and Boston, Mass., October 30, 2017 - Telenav®, Inc. (NASDAQ: TNAV), a leading provider of connected car and location-based services, and automotive camera company Waylens, Inc. announced today that they entered into a partnership that will aid mappers and drivers alike. A specially modified Waylens windshield-mounted Horizon automotive camera will provide Telenav with high-quality recorded images and data which Telenav will use to detect key road elements and further enhance OSM data. This partnership expands Telenav’s efforts to make community-based maps more precise and accurate. It also enables more people to get involved in the OSM community.
The joint effort is one of the first – if not “the first” – to use a dedicated aftermarket automotive camera for crowd-sourced map-making. To date, mobile phones and apps were used for such data collection. Using a dedicated aftermarket automotive camera has considerable advantages when crowdsourcing road data by enabling always-on data capture, data breadth, and quality.
Waylens’ Horizon camera collects high-resolution images and automatically uploads that data to the Telenav cloud when it detects Wi-Fi. This combination of software and hardware, plus the data obtained via Horizon’s connection to a vehicle’s on-board diagnostic system, results in high-quality sensor readings that will be used in Telenav’s map-improvement platform to enhance OSM.
Telenav’s deep-learning algorithms use the Horizon collected images and data to derive map attributes that are critical to creating a more accurate, navigation grade OSM. These derived map attributes include turn restrictions, speed limits, road curvature, stops signs, and highway signage, to name a few. To further support OSM, Telenav will give these modified Waylens Horizon devices to certain drivers for ongoing mapping activities.
“The Waylens Horizon camera system creates yet another means for the OSM community to collect street imagery with precise location data, such as GPS points or traces,” stated Philipp Kandal, Telenav senior vice president, engineering. “With Horizon’s wider-angle lens, we will see a greater volume of street imagery collected by and for the community, while also providing another means for community members to collect valuable data.”
“The collaboration between Telenav and Waylens is a long-term strategic alliance, as we will collaborate and innovate on other product formats as time goes on,” remarked Haowei Zhang, Waylens CEO. “Telenav presents us with an excellent opportunity to broaden our reach beyond the consumer market, where we provide fun, security, and evidence for drivers. Telenav’s technology and work within the OpenStreetMap community certainly adds to our overall user experience. We are proud that our Horizon camera will play a significant role in crowd-sourced map-making and autonomous driving.”
The Telenav-Waylens partnership announcement was recently made at the State of the Map US 2017 conference in Boulder, Colorado.
