ExelMap: Explainable Element-based HD-Map Change Detection and Update

Acquisition and maintenance are central problems in deploying high-definition (HD) maps for autonomous driving, with two lines of research prevalent in current literature: Online HD map generation and HD map change detection. However, the generated map's quality is currently insufficient for safe deployment, and many change detection approaches fail to precisely localize and extract the changed map elements, hence lacking explainability and hindering a potential fleet-based cooperative HD map update. In this paper, we propose the novel task of explainable element-based HD map change detection and update. In extending recent approaches that use online mapping techniques informed with an outdated map prior for HD map updating, we present ExelMap, an explainable element-based map updating strategy that specifically identifies changed map elements. In this context, we discuss how currently used metrics fail to capture change detection performance, while allowing for unfair comparison between prior-less and prior-informed map generation methods. Finally, we present an experimental study on real-world changes related to pedestrian crossings of the Argoverse 2 Map Change Dataset. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive problem investigation of real-world end-to-end element-based HD map change detection and update, and ExelMap the first proposed solution.