Mercedes-Benz was the first manufacturer in the world to receive approval from the Federal Motor Transport Authority for a fully automated and driverless level 4 parking function. It will soon be available for certain variants of the S-Class and EQS that are pre-equipped with the Intelligent Park Pilot. For the time being, however, the new system developed jointly with Bosch can only be used at Stuttgart Airport, where the P6 multi-storey car park is the first in the world to enable series operation.
With so-called automated valet parking, the vehicle drives itself to an assigned parking space and parks. The vehicle can also be driven up again if you wish. Sensors in the parking garage monitor the driving corridor and its surroundings and provide the information for controlling the vehicle. The technology in the car then converts the infrastructure data into driving manoeuvres. In this way, the car can also drive up and down ramps independently and change floors within the car park. If the infrastructure sensors detect an obstacle, the vehicle brakes to a standstill and resumes driving when the route is clear again.
After the driver has reserved a parking space in advance using the Mercedes me app, the vehicle can be parked in a predefined drop-off area. The parking process is then started in the app after all occupants have exited. The parking system checks whether the route to the booked parking space is free and whether all other technical requirements are met. If this is the case, the app confirms that the vehicle has been taken over by the intelligent infrastructure and the driver can leave the car park. The vehicle then starts automatically and drives itself to its parking space. If the driver wants to leave the parking garage with his car, he can use a smartphone command to drive his vehicle to a predefined pick-up area.
As early as 2019, Bosch and Mercedes-Benz had received the world’s first special permit for automated valet parking for the operation of development vehicles without human supervision in everyday operations at the Mercedes-Benz Museum in Stuttgart. (awm)