7/9/24, 12:42 PM What Is Ground Truth?

What Is Ground Truth?

M O B I L I T Y I N S I D E R | September 16, 2021

At the foundation of advanced driver-assistance systems (ADAS) is an environmental model that represents the world
around a vehicle, built on data collected from sensors such as radar, cameras, lidar and ultrasonic sensors. As
developers improve and refine the environmental models those sensors generate, they need to know how accurately
the models represent the real world. That gold standard is called ground truth.

For example, if there is a bicyclist ahead of a vehicle, the developers need to make sure the sensors accurately detect
that an object is there, determine the range to the object, measure the size of the object, measure the relative velocity
of that object, and classify that object as a bicycle. Radar is great at detecting range and velocity – performing well
even in adverse weather – and advanced radar systems are also able to determine elevation. Cameras are good at
azimuth detection and object classification but struggle with accurate range detection. To begin a full assessment of
the performance of these and other sensors, there first has to be a ground truth that establishes the “right answer”
for all of the questions the sensors are trying to address.

To record ground truth, developers use test vehicles equipped with an array of extremely sensitive inertial
measurement devices, highly accurate GPS equipment, lidar and cameras mounted to their roofs. While these sensors
are much too expensive, bulky and impractical for use in everyday vehicles, they provide very high resolution in real
time to create a highly accurate representation of the environment around the test vehicle.

Developers attach the sensors they are working on to the same vehicle, so the ground-truth sensors and the
development sensors are time-aligned, operating in the same place with the same environment and with the same
potential inputs. Testers drive the vehicles in a wide range of scenarios, both on closed test tracks and on public
roads, and then bring the data back to a lab for analysis. Because of the high volume of data collected, testers upload
it to the cloud to bring more processing power to bear and produce the ground-truth results in minutes. This ground-
truth information can then help developers pull more refined information out of raw sensor data via artificial
intelligence and machine learning.

Say, for example, that a car is outfitted with both ground-truth measurement equipment and test radar, and the radar
detects a partially occluded object that the ground truth later identifies as a bicycle when the view is no longer
blocked. Developers then use that data to tell machine learning software that the not-so-obvious pattern of radar
returns coming from the object at that location represents a bicyclist. The next time that the software encounters a
similar pattern, there is a better chance that it will be able to detect and classify that type of object — identifying a
bicycle with greater confidence and without the help of ground-truth equipment.

This technique helps to democratize safety. By applying software intelligence to radar systems and other, less-
expensive sensor hardware, OEMs can improve and extend advanced ADAS features to more vehicles, beyond just
premium models.

1
Share:    

https://www.aptiv.com/en/insights/article/what-is-ground-truth 1/4
7/9/24, 12:42 PM What Is Ground Truth?

READ MORE ABOUT ADAS

CAREERS

Shape the future of mobility. Join our team to help create vehicles that are safer, greener and more connected.

V I E W R E L AT E D J O B S

SUBSCRIBE

S TAY I N F O R M E D W I T H T H E L AT E S T O N
ADAS

Sign up and we’ll notify you when we post a new

article on ADAS.

Email address

By subscribing, you agree that we may process your

information as described in our Aptiv Privacy Statement.

SUBMIT

AT TA C H M E N T S

https://www.aptiv.com/en/insights/article/what-is-ground-truth 2/4
7/9/24, 12:42 PM What Is Ground Truth?

 All Attachments (2)

MORE LIKE THIS

What Is an Environmental Model?

MOBILITY INSIDER

How Machine Learning Improves Perception

ARTICLES

1
What Is ADAS?

https://www.aptiv.com/en/insights/article/what-is-ground-truth 3/4
7/9/24, 12:42 PM What Is Ground Truth?

MOBILITY INSIDER

Stay up to date.
Want to keep pace with where mobility is going? Sign up for our Aptiv newsletter here.

S I G N U P T O G E T U P D AT E S

Don't worry. We won't flood your inbox or share your email.

https://www.aptiv.com/en/insights/article/what-is-ground-truth 4/4