Patent ID: 8903644

Claim:
A method for mapping an environment proximal to a vehicle, the method comprising: while driving about the environment, at least periodically: obtaining a current location of the vehicle according to a map of the environment; detecting at least one characteristic of the environment at the current location, the at least one characteristic including an acceleration of the vehicle at the current location when the vehicle is in a rest mode, the acceleration being received from an inertial measurement unit of the vehicle; storing the at least one characteristic in a characteristic digest, the characteristic digest respectively associating one or more locations in the environment to one or more sets of previously detected characteristics in the environment; and associating the at least one characteristic with the current location in the characteristic digest; and in response to determining a loss of localization: detecting one or more characteristics of the environment; comparing the one or more characteristics of the environment with the previously detected characteristics stored in the characteristic digest; and estimating a location of the vehicle based on the comparison.