In-depth analysis: key positioning technology for autonomous vehicles

Self-driving cars rely on precise positioning technology to confirm their specific location on global high-precision maps. Common positioning methods include global navigation satellite system (GNSS), real-time kinematic positioning (RTK), inertial navigation, lidar positioning and visual positioning. Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, although GNSS has a wide coverage, it is greatly affected by environmental factors; RTK provides high-precision positioning, but requires support from ground base stations; inertial navigation can continuously provide location information, but errors accumulate over time; lidar positioning is robust, but it is difficult to build and maintain high-precision maps; visual positioning uses cameras to obtain image data for positioning, which is simple and easy but lacks depth information.