Mercedes-Benz Partners With Bosch For Automated Parking Tech
Giancarlo Perlas July 25, 2019
Mercedes-Benz is using an infrastructure technology by Bosch to develop a smartphone-based automated parking assistance that will make looking for a parking spot completely obsolete. The company has started practicing the feature at its official museum in Stuttgart, Germany.
The technology works exactly just like how a valet service does. When you arrive at the museum’s parking lot, you will be assigned a parking space and a designated spot where you will be allowed to leave your car. You will leave the car on that spot and with a tap on your smartphone, send it away to the assigned parking space.
The car can go up and down every level of the multi-story parking lot, which is fitted with internet-connected sensors to help the car park where it’s supposed to. The car can detect obstacles and maneuver away. So, when someone crosses in front of it or a nearby car is backing out of parking spot, the car will immediately stop.
This whole process doesn’t need human intervention. It uses Level 4 autonomous technology, which is just a step below full autonomy and two steps above the current one on the market (Tesla’s autopilot).
Mercedes isn’t the only carmaker testing this kind of technology. Rival BMW has tested a similar tech in June 2019 at its Munich headquarters. However, Mercedes is the first company to receive government approval to make it available to the general public. But to be eligible for the technology, you must be driving a late-model Mercedes-Benz.
