We all know of someone or the other whose got difficulty in parking their cars. Even I take time to park when the space is tight. It’s seldom an easy task, and it can lead to traffic tie-ups, frazzled nerves and bent fenders. The worst part is claiming insurance for damages due to parking mishaps. Fortunately, technology has an answer - cars that park themselves.

Shown above is the Lexus 460, demonstrating self parking in their ad. Automakers are starting to market self-parking cars because they sense a consumer demand. Parallel parking is often the most feared part of the driver’s test, and it’s something almost everyone has to do at some point.
Self-parking cars currently on the market are not completely autonomous, but they do make parallel parking much easier. The driver still regulates the speed of the vehicle by pressing and releasing the brake pedal (the car’s idle speed is enough to move it into the parking space without pressing the gas pedal). Once the process begins, the on-board computer system take over the steering wheel.

Most of these cars have sensors distributed around the front and rear bumpers of the car, which act as both transmitters and receivers. These sensors transmit signals, which bounce off objects around the car and reflect back to them. The on-board computer then uses the amount of time that it takes those signals to return to calculate the location of the objects. Others systems have cameras mounted onto the bumpers or use radar to detect objects. The end result is the same: the car detects the other parked cars, the size of the parking space and the distance to the curb, then steers it into the space.

BMW shown below has a prototype that parks itself in horizontal spaces, like small garages.

Other companies that have working models are the ones from Volkswagen. Check out the VW Touran in action.

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