Author Description

For an autonomous vehicle to be able to navigate aroad network, it must be aware of and must respond appropriately to any object it encounters. This includes other vehicles, pedestrians, debris, construction, accidents, emergency vehicles, and it also includesthe roadway itself. The road network must be described in such a way that an autonomous vehicle knows, with great precision and accuracy, where the road lies, rules dictating the traversal of intersections, lane markings, road barriers, road surface characteristics, etc.The purposeof this document is to provide detailed information about the Road Network Database being developed at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) as part of the DARPA Mobile Autonomous Robotics Systems (MARS) Program. The purpose of the Road Network Database is to provide the data structures necessary tocapture all of the information necessary about road networks so that a planner or control system on an autonomous vehicle can plan routes along the roadway at any level of abstraction.