A car that drops off its driver, seeks a parking space, parks, and picks up the driver again at the same spot when summoned – this is parking in the future, as envisaged by the Volvo Car Group.
The smart, driverless concept car also interacts “safely and smoothly with other cars and pedestrians in the car park”, promises the Swedish manufacturer.
“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 at the same place later,” says Volvo Car Group senior safety adviser Thomas Broberg.
So-called ‘Vehicle-2-Infrastructure’ technology – in other words, transmitters in the road infrastructure – informs the driver when the service is available.
The driver uses a mobile phone application to activate the autonomous parking function, and then walks away from the car.
The vehicle uses sensors to localise and navigate to a free parking space.
The procedure is reversed when the driver comes back to pick up the car.
Combining autonomous driving with object detection and auto-brake functions make it possible for the car to interact safely with other cars and pedestrians in the car park.
“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,” notes Broberg.
Volvo Car Group states that its aim is gaining leadership in the field of autonomous driving by “moving beyond concepts and delivering pioneering technologies that will actually reach customers”.
Volvo Cars also last year completed its participation in the Safe Road Trains for the Environment (SARTRE) project.
This programme involved seven European partners, and focused on technology that can be implemented on conventional highways where platooned traffic operates in a mixed environment with other road users.
The SARTRE platoon included a lead truck, followed by four Volvos driven autonomously at speeds of up to 90 km/h – in some cases with no more than a four-metre gap between the vehicles.
“The autonomous parking and platooning technologies are still being developed. However, we will take the first steps towards our leadership aim by introducing the first features with autonomous steering in the all-new Volvo XC90, which will be revealed at the end of 2014,” promises Broberg.