Isn’t it frustrating when you forget where you parked your car in a car park that has multiple stories? BMW is working to make sure that you never go through this frustration again. It has just announced a new feature that will allow a car to park itself and then return to the user at the touch of a button.
The voice command that is spoken into a smartwatch activates the feature, thus enabling the car to leave the parking space and drive to the exit while calculating the time it will take to get there. The technology has been named as Remote Valet Parking Assistant and is currently being tested out on BMW’s Munich based i3 vehicle.
The technology doesn’t use GPS since it isn’t effective when it comes to multi-storey car parks but instead makes use of four laser scanners that can create a virtual map of the building to allow the car to navigate. The driver only has to get out of the car and press a button. The car ascertains structural features of the building and, as per company, ‘equally reliably steers round any obstacles that appear unexpectedly – such as incorrectly parked vehicles.’
BMW also claims that it can also search for a spot to park and is capable of recognizing which parking spots are empty. The technology is being developed alongside the 360-degree collision avoidance program where the laser scanner is capable of determining the presence of hurdles and braking automatically to avoid any collision.
The system doesn’t require any special car parks and can work with the existing ones. BMW has yet not released any date regarding when this system will make its way to the market. Let’s hope that happens soon enough.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaRBZRnWaiI
