Bosch and Daimler have started a joint pilot project, car2go, to allow vehicles to drive themselves to a free parking space and return afterwards.
Automated parking is made possible with what Bosch refers to as “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.”
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This will enable automated manoeuvring in appropriately equipped parking garages in the near future.
“All our actions are oriented towards them [customers], said Daimler Group Research & Mercedes-Benz Cars Development board member, Thomas Weber.
“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.”
For his part, Bosch board member, Dirk Hoheisel noted: “Fully automated parking will be ready for mass-production before fully automated driving.
“Low driving speeds and the information from the car park infrastructure enable fast implementation.”
The companies say a smartphone is used to book a vehicle via car2go and as soon as the user is ready in the pick-up-zone of the car park, the car drives up independently and the journey can begin.
Returning the car, the customer parks it in the drop-zone of the car park and delivers 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 communication technology.
The supplier will also account for the communication unit in the vehicle, which equally 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 for the car-sharing model of car2go.
