MapDiffusion: Generative Diffusion for Vectorized Online HD Map Construction and Uncertainty Estimation in Autonomous Driving

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Monninger, Thomas, Zhang, Zihan, Mo, Zhipeng, Anwar, Md Zafar, Staab, Steffen, Ding, Sihao
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Monninger, Thomas
Zhang, Zihan
Mo, Zhipeng
Anwar, Md Zafar
Staab, Steffen
Ding, Sihao
author_facet Monninger, Thomas
Zhang, Zihan
Mo, Zhipeng
Anwar, Md Zafar
Staab, Steffen
Ding, Sihao
contents Autonomous driving requires an understanding of the static environment from sensor data. Learned Bird's-Eye View (BEV) encoders are commonly used to fuse multiple inputs, and a vector decoder predicts a vectorized map representation from the latent BEV grid. However, traditional map construction models provide deterministic point estimates, failing to capture uncertainty and the inherent ambiguities of real-world environments, such as occlusions and missing lane markings. We propose MapDiffusion, a novel generative approach that leverages the diffusion paradigm to learn the full distribution of possible vectorized maps. Instead of predicting a single deterministic output from learned queries, MapDiffusion iteratively refines randomly initialized queries, conditioned on a BEV latent grid, to generate multiple plausible map samples. This allows aggregating samples to improve prediction accuracy and deriving uncertainty estimates that directly correlate with scene ambiguity. Extensive experiments on the nuScenes dataset demonstrate that MapDiffusion achieves state-of-the-art performance in online map construction, surpassing the baseline by 5% in single-sample performance. We further show that aggregating multiple samples consistently improves performance along the ROC curve, validating the benefit of distribution modeling. Additionally, our uncertainty estimates are significantly higher in occluded areas, reinforcing their value in identifying regions with ambiguous sensor input. By modeling the full map distribution, MapDiffusion enhances the robustness and reliability of online vectorized HD map construction, enabling uncertainty-aware decision-making for autonomous vehicles in complex environments.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2507_21423
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle MapDiffusion: Generative Diffusion for Vectorized Online HD Map Construction and Uncertainty Estimation in Autonomous Driving
Monninger, Thomas
Zhang, Zihan
Mo, Zhipeng
Anwar, Md Zafar
Staab, Steffen
Ding, Sihao
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Robotics
Autonomous driving requires an understanding of the static environment from sensor data. Learned Bird's-Eye View (BEV) encoders are commonly used to fuse multiple inputs, and a vector decoder predicts a vectorized map representation from the latent BEV grid. However, traditional map construction models provide deterministic point estimates, failing to capture uncertainty and the inherent ambiguities of real-world environments, such as occlusions and missing lane markings. We propose MapDiffusion, a novel generative approach that leverages the diffusion paradigm to learn the full distribution of possible vectorized maps. Instead of predicting a single deterministic output from learned queries, MapDiffusion iteratively refines randomly initialized queries, conditioned on a BEV latent grid, to generate multiple plausible map samples. This allows aggregating samples to improve prediction accuracy and deriving uncertainty estimates that directly correlate with scene ambiguity. Extensive experiments on the nuScenes dataset demonstrate that MapDiffusion achieves state-of-the-art performance in online map construction, surpassing the baseline by 5% in single-sample performance. We further show that aggregating multiple samples consistently improves performance along the ROC curve, validating the benefit of distribution modeling. Additionally, our uncertainty estimates are significantly higher in occluded areas, reinforcing their value in identifying regions with ambiguous sensor input. By modeling the full map distribution, MapDiffusion enhances the robustness and reliability of online vectorized HD map construction, enabling uncertainty-aware decision-making for autonomous vehicles in complex environments.
title MapDiffusion: Generative Diffusion for Vectorized Online HD Map Construction and Uncertainty Estimation in Autonomous Driving
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Artificial Intelligence
Machine Learning
Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.21423