Objectives High definition map （HDM） is the “sensor” for automated driving (AD), which integrates the real-time data collected by various sensors and the prior data collected in the early stage, and serves the application of AD, including providing the necessary prior data and the corresponding over-the-horizon perception, calibration positioning, dynamic planning and decision-making and control. However, there still exists a gap between the supply of HDM data and the demand for AD knowledge, including difficulties in data retrieval due to the large volume of data and challenges in semantic understanding and intelligent decision-making due to weak data correlation. Therefore, how to balance the data supply of HDM and the knowledge demand of AD is the main goal of this paper.

Methods Knowledge graph (KG) is a representation of knowledge in a graph structure to describe entities and their relationships, involving entity extraction and relationship extraction, so that it can make the AD with interpretable, understandable and inferential. This means that KG can serve as an alternative and explicit simulation of the human mind and map cognition that driverless vehicles are missing. Therefore, we introduce KG on the basis of HDM data, and propose a framework of HDM-KG-driving task, so as to support the transformation of HDM data to AD knowledge. The construction of HDM-KG adopts the top-down method, that is, the pattern layer is first followed by the data layer. As the conceptual hierarchy of KG, pattern layer defines the concept, attribute and relation of map ontology, and it can explicitly describe the indirect information and implicit correlation information of map domain from the perspective of traffic. The data layer is an instantiation of the pattern layer, a way to populate the pattern layer through instance matching.

Results To verify the validity of the proposed method, a virtual simulation dataset based on OpenStreetMap data is constructed and converted into two formats. The first is the OpenDRIVE format, which is used to build the KG of static data, including the static knowledge of roads, lanes, intersections, road signs and road markings. The other is the data format of CARLA AD-simulator, which is used for AD simulation and the construction of dynamic real-time KG, including the dynamic knowledge of self-driving cars and vehicles in front of them, pedestrians and other traffic participants. Through the application of the resulting HDM-KG in semantic query, knowledge reasoning and local decision planning, the results show that the HDM-KG explicitly expresses the semantic relationship, enhances the application of HDM in AD, and can further improve AD by connecting additional knowledge such as safety requirements, traffic rules or scene background.

Conclusions HDM-KG can structurally and explicitly express the traffic semantics contained in map objects and the semantic relations between objects, traffic rule constraints, traffic scenes and other knowledge, and realize the three-layer evolution of data-information-knowledge of data sources-HDM-KG, providing support for semantic relation query, logical reasoning and motion planning required by driving tasks. In addition, the introduction of KG eliminates the need for driving tasks to perceive and predict objects and semantic relationships from data collected by sensors, which are explicitly defined by HDM-KG, reducing computational latency and improving safety and reliability. The top-down method of constructing KG will cost more labor and time, and the subsequent research will carry out the bottom-up method to automatically fill the KG with multi-source data.