Shoo Tommy....Oops no, you are
not asking your pet dog to fetch something for you. In fact , through a
smartphone app, your car could one day look for their spaces in a parking
garage and return all by themselves by using a smartphone app? This is the goal
of a joint pilot project, started by Daimler, Bosch and car2go, when signing
the contract on July 8, 2015. The existing parking process will be
revolutionised: It is not the customer who parks and searches for their car,
which is a pain one has to endure...the vehicle drives to a free space
independently and drives up comfortably by itself again.
Automated parking is made
possible thanks to an intelligent infrastructure in the car park and a vehicle
control unit from Bosch in conjunction with the newest generation of
Mercedes-Benz on-board sensors and the car-sharing expertise of car2go. This
enables automated manoeuvring in appropriately equipped parking garages in the
near future.
“Our customers are always the
centre of attention and all of our actions are oriented towards them. In future
the car will even go to them”, explains Prof. Dr. Thomas Weber, Member of the
Board Daimler AG, responsible for Group Research & Mercedes-Benz Cars
Development. “In collaboration with our partner Bosch and our mobility service
car2go we are developing and testing an infrastructure-based solution for a
fully automated valet parking service. For us another step on our way to
autonomous driving – or as in this case: towards autonomous parking!” he added.
“Fully automated parking will
be ready for mass-production before fully automated driving”, says Dr. Dirk
Hoheisel, the responsible Board Member of Bosch adding that “Low driving speeds
and the information from the car park infrastructure enable a fast
implementation.”
The scenario is conceivably
simple: The smartphone is used to book a vehicle via car2go. As soon as the
user is ready in the pick-up-zone of the car park, the car drives up
independently and the ride can begin. Returning the car is just as comfortable.
The customer parks it in the drop-zone of the car park and returns the car via
their smartphone. The intelligent system of the car park registers the vehicle,
starts it and directs it to an assigned parking space.
Bosch is developing the
necessary infrastructure for the car park, including parking space occupancy
sensors, cameras and the communication technology. Furthermore, Bosch will
account for the communication unit in the vehicle, which also controls the
parking process and defines together with Daimler the interface with existing
vehicle components. Daimler will adjust the sensor systems and the software in
the car2go vehicles and enables future innovation leaps for the car-sharing
model of car2go.
Source: Daimler / Bosch