# Semantic Image Alignment for Vehicle Localization

Source: [Semantic Image Alignment for Vehicle Localization](<https://www.sota2.com/research/paper/68fa6afb1e209131cea2b809>)

Collection index: [llms.txt](<https://www.sota2.com/research/llms.txt>)

Data updated: 2025-10-27T06:10:35.496Z

Authors: Markus Herb, Matthias Lemberger, Marcel M. Schmitt, Alexander Kurz, Tobias Weiherer, Nassir Navab, Federico Tombari

Published: 2021-10-08T14:40:15.000Z

## Abstract

Accurate and reliable localization is a fundamental requirement for autonomous vehicles to use map information in higher-level tasks such as navigation or planning. In this paper, we present a novel approach to vehicle localization in dense semantic maps, including vectorized high-definition maps or 3D meshes, using semantic segmentation from a monocular camera. We formulate the localization task as a direct image alignment problem on semantic images, which allows our approach to robustly track the vehicle pose in semantically labeled maps by aligning virtual camera views rendered from the map to sequences of semantically segmented camera images. In contrast to existing visual localization approaches, the system does not require additional keypoint features, handcrafted localization landmark extractors or expensive LiDAR sensors. We demonstrate the wide applicability of our method on a diverse set of semantic mesh maps generated from stereo or LiDAR as well as manually annotated HD maps and show that it achieves reliable and accurate localization in real-time.

## Recorded benchmark results

A research result applies to its stated dataset, split, metric and evaluation configuration. Compare like-for-like settings, preserve the metric's unit and direction, and distinguish paper-reported results from independent reproduction. The best result recorded here is not a claim of exhaustive, current global coverage.

## Original sources and implementation

[Original paper](<https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.04162>)

[PDF](<https://arxiv.org/pdf/2110.04162.pdf>)