Tech Tuesday: Volvo Developing Self-Parking Cars
By Matt O'Hern // June 25, 2013
TECH TUESDAY
ABOVE VIDEO: Volvo’s animated movie demonstrates its prototypefor a self-parking car. The concept car will be demonstrated at a media event next week.
The age-old tasks of finding a parking spot and parking your car may be coming to an end. Volvo Car Group is developing a self-parking car that follows commands from your smartphone.
According to a press release from Volvo, the company developed an ingenious concept for autonomous parking.The vehicle uses sensors to localize and navigate to a free parking space. The procedure is reversed when the driver comes back to pick up the car.
The concept car, which will be demonstrated at a media event next week, finds and parks in a vacant space by itself, without the driver inside. The smart, driverless car also interacts safely and smoothly with other cars and pedestrians in the car park.
“Autonomous Parking is a concept technology that relieves the driver of the time-consuming task of finding a vacant parking space. The driver just drops the vehicle off at the entrance to the car park and picks it up in the same place later,” says Thomas Broberg, Senior Safety Advisor Volvo Car Group.
Transmitters in the road infrastructure, inform the driver when the service is available. The driver uses a mobile phone application to activate the Autonomous Parking and then walks away from the car.
Interacts with other vehicles and road users
Combining autonomous driving with detection and auto brake for other objects makes it possible for the car to interact safely with other cars and pedestrians in the car park. Speed and braking are adapted for smooth integration in the parking environment.
“Our approach is based on the principle that autonomously driven cars must be able to move safely in environments with non-autonomous vehicles and unprotected road users,” Broberg said.
