# Neural Map Prior for Autonomous Driving

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.08481 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.08481/

## Key facts

- Cited by 68 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 24 of its 42 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Apr 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 24 of 24)

- [Swin Transformer: Hierarchical Vision Transformer using Shifted Windows](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.14030/) (2021)
- [nuScenes: A multimodal dataset for autonomous driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1903.11027/) (2019)
- [DeepSDF: Learning Continuous Signed Distance Functions for Shape Representation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1901.05103/) (2019)
- [Empirical Evaluation of Gated Recurrent Neural Networks on Sequence Modeling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1412.3555/) (2014)
- [Occupancy Networks: Learning 3D Reconstruction in Function Space](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03828/) (2018)
- [BEVFormer: Learning Bird's-Eye-View Representation from Multi-Camera Images via Spatiotemporal Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.17270/) (2022)
- [Lift, Splat, Shoot: Encoding Images From Arbitrary Camera Rigs by Implicitly Unprojecting to 3D](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.05711/) (2020)
- [Neural Sparse Voxel Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.11571/) (2020)
- [PIFu: Pixel-Aligned Implicit Function for High-Resolution Clothed Human Digitization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1905.05172/) (2019)
- [DETR3D: 3D Object Detection from Multi-view Images via 3D-to-2D Queries](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.06922/) (2021)
- [Local Implicit Grid Representations for 3D Scenes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08981/) (2020)
- [MapTR: Structured Modeling and Learning for Online Vectorized HD Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.14437/) (2022)
- [Cross-view Transformers for real-time Map-view Semantic Segmentation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.02833/) (2022)
- [VectorMapNet: End-to-end Vectorized HD Map Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2206.08920/) (2022)
- [NeuralRecon: Real-Time Coherent 3D Reconstruction from Monocular Video](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.00681/) (2021)
- [FUTR3D: A Unified Sensor Fusion Framework for 3D Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.10642/) (2022)
- [Predicting Semantic Map Representations from Images using Pyramid Occupancy Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.13402/) (2020)
- [Cross-view Semantic Segmentation for Sensing Surroundings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.03560/) (2019)
- [LGSVL Simulator: A High Fidelity Simulator for Autonomous Driving](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.03778/) (2020)
- [Translating Images into Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.00966/) (2021)
- [Monocular Semantic Occupancy Grid Mapping with Convolutional Variational Encoder-Decoder Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1804.02176/) (2018)
- [HDNET: Exploiting HD Maps for 3D Object Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.11704/) (2020)
- [TorontoCity: Seeing the World with a Million Eyes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.00423/) (2016)
- [Hindsight is 20/20: Leveraging Past Traversals to Aid 3D Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.11405/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 68)

- [MapTRv2: An End-to-End Framework for Online Vectorized HD Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.05736/) (2023)
- [StreamMapNet: Streaming Mapping Network for Vectorized Online HD Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12570/) (2023)
- [Augmenting Lane Perception and Topology Understanding with Standard Definition Navigation Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.04079/) (2023)
- [Online Map Vectorization for Autonomous Driving: A Rasterization Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.10502/) (2023)
- [P-MapNet: Far-seeing Map Generator Enhanced by both SDMap and HDMap Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.10521/) (2024)
- [HIMap: HybrId Representation Learning for End-to-end Vectorized HD Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.08639/) (2024)
- [Language-driven All-in-one Adverse Weather Removal](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.01381/) (2023)
- [Enhancing Vectorized Map Perception with Historical Rasterized Maps](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.00620/) (2024)
- [SURDS: Benchmarking Spatial Understanding and Reasoning in Driving Scenarios with Vision Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.13112/) (2024)
- [Complementing Onboard Sensors with Satellite Map: A New Perspective for HD Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.15427/) (2023)
- [Is Your HD Map Constructor Reliable under Sensor Corruptions?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.12214/) (2024)
- [MapDistill: Boosting Efficient Camera-based HD Map Construction via Camera-LiDAR Fusion Model Distillation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.11682/) (2024)
- [PreSight: Enhancing Autonomous Vehicle Perception with City-Scale NeRF Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.09079/) (2024)
- [MV-Map: Offboard HD-Map Generation with Multi-view Consistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.08851/) (2023)
- [OccVLA: Vision-Language-Action Model with Implicit 3D Occupancy Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.05578/) (2025)
- [DiffMap: Enhancing Map Segmentation with Map Prior Using Diffusion Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.02008/) (2024)
- [GlobalMapNet: An Online Framework for Vectorized Global HD Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.10063/) (2024)
- [BLOS-BEV: Navigation Map Enhanced Lane Segmentation Network, Beyond Line of Sight](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08526/) (2024)
- [PrevPredMap: Exploring Temporal Modeling with Previous Predictions for Online Vectorized HD Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.17378/) (2024)
- [SMART: Advancing Scalable Map Priors for Driving Topology Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.04329/) (2025)
- [NeMO: Neural Map Growing System for Spatiotemporal Fusion in Bird's-Eye-View and BDD-Map Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.04540/) (2023)
- [OpenSatMap: A Fine-grained High-resolution Satellite Dataset for Large-scale Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.23278/) (2024)
- [DTCLMapper: Dual Temporal Consistent Learning for Vectorized HD Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.05518/) (2024)
- [PriorDrive: Enhancing Online HD Mapping with Unified Vector Priors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.05352/) (2024)
- [MGMapNet: Multi-Granularity Representation Learning for End-to-End Vectorized HD Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.07733/) (2024)
- [Bridging Perspectives: Foundation Model Guided BEV Maps for 3D Object Detection and Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.10287/) (2025)
- [DaCapo: Accelerating Continuous Learning in Autonomous Systems for Video Analytics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.14353/) (2024)
- [Memorize What Matters: Emergent Scene Decomposition from Multitraverse](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.17187/) (2024)
- [HisTrackMap: Global Vectorized High-Definition Map Construction via History Map Tracking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.07168/) (2025)
- [SDTagNet: Leveraging Text-Annotated Navigation Maps for Online HD Map Construction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.08997/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

High-definition (HD) semantic maps are crucial in enabling autonomous vehicles to navigate urban environments. The traditional method of creating offline HD maps involves labor-intensive manual annotation processes, which are not only costly but also insufficient for timely updates. Recent studies have proposed an alternative approach that generates local maps using online sensor observations. However, this approach is limited by the sensor's perception range and its susceptibility to occlusions. In this study, we propose Neural Map Prior (NMP), a neural representation of global maps. This representation automatically updates itself and improves the performance of local map inference. Specifically, we utilize two approaches to achieve this. Firstly, to integrate a strong map prior into local map inference, we apply cross-attention, a mechanism that dynamically identifies correlations between current and prior features. Secondly, to update the global neural map prior, we utilize a learning-based fusion module that guides the network in fusing features from previous traversals. Our experimental results, based on the nuScenes dataset, demonstrate that our framework is highly compatible with various map segmentation and detection architectures. It significantly improves map prediction performance, even in challenging weather conditions and situations with a longer perception range. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first learning-based system for creating a global map prior.