Autonomous parking gets one step closer to reality thanks to Volvo

Volvo has developed a creative concept for autonomous parking. The concept will be demonstrated at a media event next week, where a concept car would find and park in a vacant space - without the driver. The smart, driverless car also interacts safely and smoothly with other cars and pedestrians in the car park.

"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," says Thomas Broberg, Senior Safety Advisor Volvo Car Group.

'Vehicle 2 Infrastructure' technology, in other words transmitters in the road infrastructure, informs the driver when the service is available. The driver uses a mobile phone application to activate the Autonomous Parking and then walks away from the car.

The vehicle uses sensors to localise and navigate to a free parking space. The procedure is reversed when the driver comes back to pick up the car.