Road Graph Generator: Mapping roads at construction sites from GPS data

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel GPS-based method for mapping construction site roads by identifying intersections and connecting them into a graph, addressing challenges posed by erratic machinery movement and GPS noise.

Contribution

The paper presents a new approach for inferring road networks at construction sites from GPS data, focusing on intersection detection and graph construction tailored for construction machinery.

Findings

Achieved perfect accuracy in low-noise conditions

Performance decreases with high GPS noise and missing data

Validated on real construction site data in Norway

Abstract

We propose a new method for inferring roads from GPS trajectories to map construction sites. This task presents a unique challenge due to the erratic and non-standard movement patterns of construction machinery, which significantly diverge from typical vehicular traffic on established roads. Our proposed method first identifies intersections in the road network that serve as critical decision points, and then connects them with edges to produce a graph, which can subsequently be used for planning and task-allocation. We demonstrate the approach by mapping roads at a real-life construction site in Norway. The method is validated on four increasingly complex segments of the map. In our tests, the method achieved perfect accuracy in detecting intersections and inferring roads in data with no or low noise, while its performance was reduced in areas with significant noise and consistently missing GPS updates.