Every form of new map technology has the funny stories to go with it. Map Blast comes to mind. Armed with a printed set of directions, I set out to visit one of my client tool shops in Oak Ridge Tennessee. The town of Oak Ridge is surrounded by the government atomic energy reservation that figured heavily in the development of the Atomic bomb. Just because roads are visible in the satellite images does not mean that they are available for public use. When the fences with barbed wire tops became 10 ft tall and a suburban with blacked out windows pulled in front and behind me, it became apparent that I chose the wrong route. Fortunately the guards thought it was funny when I showed them the Map Blast directions. Human editing of the embedded Map Blast maps saves current travelers this embarrassment.
When we say the word map, many people think of the folded street route maps that inhabit the glove boxes of our cars. Even though most people now use mobile based route directions, the old fashioned printed map can guide us home when the other technology fails. Autonomous vehicles also need to use maps. In their case the maps takes an electronic form. In the buildings that these vehicles inhabit there are pitfalls. Having designed many pit covers I make this assertion literally. Pit covers that look the same on the top can be designed to carry pedestrian traffic. lift truck traffic and even train traffic. An accurate map is needed to keep the autonomous vehicle from falling into pits, running over cords, creating traffic jams, endangering pedestrians and damaging the vehicle itself. This does not discount the sensors onboard that can detect a “bridge” that is out Human intervention is usually needed to create a revised map showing alternate routes. This is currently painfully obvious in Atlanta where we need to bypass a damaged main interstate bridge. Similar disruption occurs when we need to map alternate routes for autonomous vehicles. An efficiency penalty is expected.