Improving digital maps through GPS data processing

Personal navigation assistants (PNA) depend on updated digital maps for correctly positioning and route guiding users. As updating digital maps by the usual means is a highly expensive and time consuming task, GPS points gathered by existing navigation devices can be used to compare the existing real road network with the digital one. This paper describes an approach to update digital maps through the use of GPS points obtained during users´ journeys as a means to identify map incongruence. Detection of new roads and roundabouts are presented with an explanation of the problem and a sample of the results.