Sometime soon, your car will park itself in urban garages

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So after the coronavirus threat has passed, you head downtown for a baseball game.

You get to the parking garage, and using an app on your phone, you link your SUV to the garage's computers and sensors, and the SUV finds an area on the fourth floor and parks itself while you catch batting practice.

This is not some far-off technology anymore. German auto parts maker Bosch is testing it with Mercedes in Stuttgart. And the other day it announced a collaboration with Ford at a garage near downtown Detroit.

Although the backers won't say when the technology could possibly be in widespread use, they state it's one benefit from autonomous-car research that is coming sooner instead of later.

“The goal is as soon as practically possible to deliver a safe experience,” says Kevin Bopp, vice president of parking and mobility for Bedrock, the true estate arm of Detroit-based mortgage giant Quicken Loans.

Bedrock owns the parking garage just west of downtown where Ford and Bosch are testing something using modified Ford Escape small SUVs and about 20 floor-mounted laser sensors.

Bopp sees the technology moving from the test to a residential building where selected tenants can summon vehicles for personal use with the custom parking feature. Data would be gathered and problems exercised, and from there, the systems would spread to other smart garages with sensors and computers.

Since doors don't have to be opened and vehicles could be parked closer together, garage operators can park 15% to 20% more vehicles in the same space, reducing the necessity for garages and allowing important city space to be turned into parks or other uses, backers say.

The automated valet parking likely should come before widespread usage of fully automated vehicles because existing features can be used to go the vehicles without humans when driving, said Greg Stevens, global manager of driver assist technology for Dearborn, Michigan-based Ford. Garages would have varying degrees of sensors and computers, he said.

Some vehicle sensors also could be used, but getting the garages use the vehicles is a great solution, Stevens said. “Some garages will be smarter than others, so our vehicles must be smarter,” he said.

Vehicles would have to manage to stop and begin the engine on their own, shift automatically, and also have electronically manipulated brakes and steering, backers say.

At the Ford-Bosch demonstration this week, personnel pulled an Escape in to the garage and activated the app. The SUV, with a human safety driver, backed into one parking space alone, pulled out and backed into another, stopping for a drinking glass that was in the middle of among the spaces. Since it returned to the pickup point, the Escape stopped for a soccer ball that was rolled before it.

The tests will determine whether the companies could make a business case to take further steps toward automated parking. Up to now Ford, Bosch and Bedrock have an agreement for the original demonstration project, but are eyeing future deals. 
Source: https://japantoday.com

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