Hard as it is to keep TV remotes from youngsters, here’s one you definitely need to secure – Volvo is set to demonstrate a remote self-parking system in which your car parks itself while you’re absent.
“Autonomous Parking is a concept technology that relieves the driver of the time-consuming task of finding a vacant parking space. The driver just drops the vehicle off at the entrance to the car park and picks it up in the same place later,” revealed Volvo’s Thomas Broberg.
With you on your way inside, your Volvo then finds and parks in a vacant spot by itself, without anyone inside. Naturally the driver-less Volvo interacts smoothly with other cars and pedestrians.
The trick is sensors which enable the Volvo to localize and navigate to a free parking space (reversed when the driver returns to the pick-up point – the car returns to you). You’d be tempted to whistle and say: “Here Boy!”
Some major shopping mall car-parks frequented by CarShowroom (Miranda Fair in Sydney and Chadstone in Melbourne) are so busy at Christmas we could imagine our Volvo driving around, and around, and around searching for a spot and returning to us without ever having been parked (Note to self: “At these times remember to leave plenty of fuel in the tank”).
While this is some way from an everyday technology, Volvo will soon roll-out its next technological advance in production form – autonomous steering in the all-new XC90 due late next year.
