Volkswagen has unveiled a new parking system that allows fully automatic parking via remote control– all without the need for a driver to even be in the car.Dubbed Park Assist Vision (PAV), the new system is a development of the Park Assist (PA) system available as an option on various Volkswagen models, including the Touran, Tiguan and Passat, allowing parking not only into parallel spaces but perpendicular ones as well.Set to be made public at the Hanover Fair in Germany this week, the PAV system uses cameras mounted around the car, a series of ultrasonic sensors, an electro-mechanical steering system and 2GHz computer to determine the size of a parking space and, when commanded, automatically park the car.The driver initiates the system by selecting an image of a vacant parking space projected onto a touch screen monitor via the cameras, slotting the DSG gear lever into “P” and, if so desired, exiting the car. The rest of the parking process is then operated via a button on the key fob.The car then automatically reverses into the parking space guided by the ultrasonic sensors before the PAV system turns off the engine and locks the doors. If a problem arises, the system can be overriden with a simple press of a stop command on the key fob.Although still in the development process, Volkswagen is confident that PAV will one day follow its simpler PA system into production. “The technology is all in use today in one form or another. It is now a matter of perfecting the system for everyday use,” an insider told Autocar.
Join the debate
Add your comment
Re: VW's new self-parking system
Nice idea but .... what happens when you have parked your car into the slightly too small parking space and the owner of the car next to yours comes back and finds that he cannot open his car-door wide enough to get in ? This system would only really be of use if every car had it and it also enabled you to un-park remotely, so to speak. And can you image the queues building up in the local multi-storey on a busy day when a mum with two or three kids tries to unload them and all her clobber before finally working out how to remote-control park the car ? Nightmare.
Re: VW's new self-parking system
Should this technology actually work well in the real world, it will enable large cars to fit into standard size spaces since human exit/entry wont be required in the parking space. Of course that means the car must be able to drive itself out of the space too - requiring a little more forethought before parking presumably.