Improved Location Engine Delivered in New Navigation SDK (Android + iOS) | by Mapbox

By: Antonio Zugaldia

Our latest Navigation SDK (v1.0 Android + iOS) ships with an enhanced location engine to better guide drivers in dense urban environments with poor GPS signal and through tricky maneuvers that typically make guidance confusing — like sharp turns, narrow exits , and close together. parallel road. This new location engine continuously filters and processes GPS signals and even extrapolates the driver’s current location when a GPS signal is not available using a dead reckoning algorithm, to avoid navigation interference. This provides high positioning accuracy, with low latency, so that the driver’s location on the map remains in sync with the vehicle’s actual location. Download the Navigation SDK and view the updated documentation (Android + iOS).

This improvement is measurable; drivers using the new SDK experienced a higher percentage of trip completions without any rerouting. As a result of the increased precision accuracy of the new location machines, drivers reduce the likelihood of delays due to unclear directions, and arrive on time for more deliveries and pickups.

3D map for precise highlighting of destination buildings: The new SDK shows highlighted destination buildings upon arrival, helping drivers make more timely deliveries and spend less time looking for the right building.

Camera Controls: The Navigation SDK provides different camera processors to determine whether camera movement is caused by user gestures, built-in API animations, or developer-controlled movement to change the driver’s viewpoint over the map. The camera can be tilted, rotated, zoomed, and/or moved with on-screen gestures such as pinching or with pre-written code, specifically the CameraPosition class consisting of camera target, angle, zoom, tilt, and bearing.

iOS14 Car Screening: CarPlay is supported in the Navigation SDK for iOS. This means any app that uses the Navigation SDK can connect directly to a CarPlay-enabled car’s infotainment screen.

Studio maps are designed for drivers: In addition to highlighting destinations for drivers, developers can design custom map styles that combine satellite tracks, roads, and buildings. This can better direct drivers in the last 100 meters of their delivery to maintain accurate ETAs.

For example, this turn-by-turn vector map transitions smoothly to satellite imagery as you zoom in.

“Our riders and drivers need precise location and ETA information in dense urban environments like Singapore, and Navigation SDK v1.0, with its enhanced location engine, fits our needs perfectly. New features to customize the user experience for our drivers, especially building highlighting, will allow us to differentiate our product and improve our business metrics.” — Paras Gorasiya, Product Technical Lead, Ryde Technology

Free riding mode: Drivers who are familiar with a route don’t always need directions but need to look at traffic conditions and nearby POIs. The new SDK has a “free driving mode” where the location indicator (puck) is always aligned on the map to the driver’s current location and the map remains centered even if the driver does not have an active turn-by-turn navigation session.

Traffic: Traffic congestion levels can be set to indicate unknown, low, medium, heavy, and heavy traffic conditions. Route lines can be laid out independently with traffic fills and edges before and after location indicators. With dedicated route lane layout and accurate indication of traffic congestion levels along the route, drivers can gauge current traffic conditions with just one glance.

Near real-time traffic updates for 2.3 billion road segments worldwide. The 650 million monthly active users touching our maps create a data feedback loop. Our AI-powered data pipeline processes +300 million miles of aggregated, anonymized and privacy-filtered driving data, road telemetry data every day — enabling Mapbox to continuously update traffic on maps anywhere in the world.

Location indicator customization: The location indicator (puck) in the Navigation SDK can be adjusted based on navigation status, such as off-route, bad signal, or arrival. For example, a delivery app may choose to prominently highlight the puck’s location when the driver exits the route to draw their attention back to the planned route.

Price: Like all Mapbox APIs and SDKs, the Navigation SDK is available to developers on a pay-as-you-go basis — no commitment required. To enable fleets to align costs for each driver, the SDK has MAU (monthly active users) based billing, which includes all Directions and Maps API requests, combined into one consistent price per driver. Developers who want to use Directions API-based billing can still do so by calling the API directly from within their applications.

Start building using our free tier — published pricing for all services, including volume discounts that automatically trigger as usage increases. Download the SDK and view updated documentation for Android and iOS.