Intermap Technologies and Hella Auto Partners

27 January 2010, 10:59pm

DENVER & Lippstadt, Germany – (January 27, 2010) Intermap Technologies, the foremost worldwide 3D digital mapping company, today announced a collaboration with Hella KGaA Hueck & Co., a leading provider of innovative driver assistance systems, regarding a predictive front lighting system based on Intermap’s reliable 3D road geometries.

The partnership integrates Intermap’s high-resolution 3D road geometries, and information supplied by camera systems in an automobile, into Hella’s front lighting demonstration system – ultimately providing a significant increase in visibility for drivers at night and during inclement weather by automatically directing the headlamp before the driver manually steers the vehicle into a bend or up and down a slope.

“Intermap´s highly accurate 3D road data is a key enabler of our map-based predictive front lighting application,” said Dr.-Ing. Georg Florissen, Hella’s head of advanced development, driver assistance systems lighting. “Overall, this integration of digital map data provides a comprehensive and secure system, combining the data with camera and other sensors to take our predictive front lighting systems to the next level.”

Intermap senior vice president, automotive group, Eric DesRoche, said “Intermap has developed the world’s only database encompassing accurate 3D road geometry for every road in the United States and Western Europe. It is important that vehicle safety systems encompass reliable 3D road vectors for all classes of roads, including smaller rural roads, as these are often where the more difficult curves, dips, and slopes are encountered. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that certain vehicle functions, such as lighting, can be operated via an independent 3D map database, separate from onboard 2D navigation systems. This lighting application is the first of many ADAS and safety applications, leveraging Intermap’s reliable 3D maps, which we expect to see in the next generation of passenger vehicles.”

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, adaptive headlight systems are meant to improve visibility on curved roads. Accidents related to this type of driving account for four percent of front-to-rear, single-driver, and sideswipe same direction crashes in the U.S. – or approximately 143,000 per year. Adaptive headlight systems could help reduce the number of related fatal crashes from the nearly 2,500 currently in the U.S. every year.

For more information about Intermap automotive, or Hella KGaA Hueck & Co., visit the links below.

Intermap automotive

Hella KGaA Hueck & Co.

Geo: International