atlatec

Berta Benz driving her husband’s car to Pforzheim 125 years ago marked an important milestone for automotive history. In celebration of the event, Daimler decided to drive the same route once more - this time with an autonomous vehicle.

As a response to the special technical demands surrounding this project, Atlatec was founded - a company with strong roots in the KIT university and computer vision science that specializes in high-definition 3D maps for autonomous driving applications.

A few years later, Atlatec is still doing well and growing at a high pace. The demand for custom-made HD maps is strong and the company’s approach to serving it has paid off: The team surrounding founder and CEO Dr. Henning Lategahn has developed a very lean sensor box that can easily be attached to virtually any car everywhere in the world, allowing for the mapping of whatever routes their international customers would like a “digital twin” of. A self-developed software pipeline and a combination of artificial and human intelligence takes care of quality control and labelling of objects within the maps, such as road edges, traffic signs and more.

The AVL Creators Expedition presented itself as an interesting next step and an opportunity to offer Atlatec’s “Mapping as a Service” expertise at scale: The aim of the project is to build an open database that allows automotive professionals to search Atlatec’s maps for routes that confirm to specific criteria such as elevation changes, curve radius, number of lanes etc. - basically an “online shop” for digitized real-life roads that can be used in simulations and for other use cases.

First results look promising and Henning is happy with the collaboration: ’The project with AVL has been a great opportunity for the Atlatec team to connect with the automotive world. The synergies are very promising and the project has shown that we can combine the best of both worlds. We are looking forward to our continued partnership and the result of combining AVL’s expertise and reach with our work.’