Payver uses drivers' mobile camera to gather data on roads
Mapping start-up Lvl5 has launched Payver, an app that pays drivers in the US for sharing a recording of the road they're driving on through their smartphone's camera. The data will be used to create detailed digital maps to provide self-driving cars with information on the road ahead. Each user to drive the same stretch will confirm or provide updates on traffic lights, stop signs and other details to improve the map. Crowdsourcing is the natural way to gather data from the whole country, said John Ristevski, former head of autonomous car mapping at Here.
If you drive for a living, you’re likely worried about what self-driving technology will do to your livelihood, and for good reason. But if you’re a “can’t-beat-'em-join'-em” type, and figure you might as well make a few bucks helping ease the inevitable into existence, just download Payver. It's an app that pays you a few pennies for every mile you drive, if you’re willing to point your phone’s camera at the road and share what it records.

Payver is the work of Lvl5, a new startup focused on building the maps self-driving cars will need to navigate safely. Detailed, digital maps are widely considered an essential addition to the sensors these vehicles carry, an extra source of information to complement the cameras, radars, and lidars scanning the road. If the car at least knows the basic lay of the land, the thinking goes, handling real time obstacles gets easier.

The problem is, those maps need a level of detail that goes way beyond what you’ll find on any phone screen or atlas: Not just street names and which roads are one-way, but the exact location of every stop sign, traffic light, lane line, and curb, down to the centimeter.

Lvl5

Lvl5 was founded last year by three engineers—two Tesla Autopilot veterans, one formerly of iRobot—who think they can make charting the world easy by crowdsourcing data from the countless camera phones already in cars. Payver is the first step in their plan: Anyone can download the app, point the camera out the windshield, and get paid between one and five cents for every mile they drive (you get more for roads other drivers haven’t hit yet). The camera’s feed gets uploaded to Lvl5’s central hub (via Wi-Fi by default), where the startup’s software picks out key features—traffic lights, lane lines, stop signs—and builds the map. No expensive lidar, or dedicated drivers needed. Each subsequent user to drive that same stretch either confirms the details or provides updates: Here there be a new pothole.

“Our approach, which combines computer vision software, crowdsourcing and widely available, affordable hardware, means our technology is accessible,” says CEO Andrew Kouri.

Many of the companies developing autonomous tech have built their own maps by sending out fleets of camera- and lidar-equipped vehicles to scan the environment in advance. That works fine for testing purposes, but it’s hard to scale to larger areas, especially since these maps will need to be updated frequently—like every few days—because they’re no good if they’re giving robots bad data.