Audi's self-parking car

At CES 2013, Audi, the one of the world’s top car manufacturers showcased a car that can drive itself. And what’s more important, the car parks itself too!The basic concept behind this car is, the person can drive to work or anyplace in the car and then get off at the desired spot, letting the car go on and park itself in the parking lot or garage.

The car uses an array of internal and external sensors to get its position: Audi claims they can be as accurate up to 10cm, but only if they have access to special laser sensors inside the parking structure (four of those scanners had been set up in the parking structure to support the demo). These might be redundant in the future, as the car maker is working on a laser sensor that will be integrated in the car itself (think the sensor tower on top of Google's self-driving car, but completely integrated in the chassis).

The self-parking system also needs access to the car park's management system, in order to find and allocate a free parking space and transmit the route to the car. Since most modern car parks have more than one level or are underground, GPS-based positioning is not really an option, so instead the management system uses Wi-Fi to transmit the route.

The video below shows a working demo of the self-parking Audi in the garage of the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Las Vegas. 

[Via : zdnet]