There is already cars on the road that can park themselves. Now Volkswagen has a Passat concept that is making the rounds of fairs and such in Europe that parks itself.
The car features a technology called “Park Assist Vision” which independently guides the Passat into any parking space.
The driver settles the car where he wants it to park, gets out and as he is walking away pushes a remote control button. The car then goes on to reverse park itself into the space. Once the car is parked properly, the system turns off the engine and locks the doors.
VW is apparently very serious about a self parking system. This one described here is not its first. A Valeo “Park4U” Park Assist semi-automatic park-steering systems appears on the Touran, Tiguan and Passat to parallel park. The new system can not only parallel park, but can also park perpendicular and is fully automatic.
The system works off two cameras located in the left and right exterior mirrors which measure the dimensions of the parking space. The video signals are transmitted to a 2- Ghz high performance computer which analyzes the data and sends commands to the steering and drive systems. The parking motion is monitored by cameras and ultrasound sensors in the front and rear of the car and stops the vehicle when necessary.
The new technology is still in the testing stage and VW has not announced a date for when it will be introduced into a production vehicle.