Daimler and Bosch have come together to develop a new system that will allow cars to look for spaces in a car park, park themselves and return all by themselves using a smartphone app. The joint pilot project by Daimler, Bosch and car2go, aims to revolutionise the parking process, making it faster and more convenient. 

It will be made possible thanks to an intelligent infrastructure in the car park and a vehicle control unit from Bosch in conjunction with the newest generation of Mercedes-Benz on-board sensors and the car-sharing expertise of car2go. This enables automated manoeuvring in appropriately equipped parking areas.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Weber, Member of the Board Daimler AG, responsible for Group Research & Mercedes-Benz Cars Development comments, “In collaboration with our partner Bosch and our mobility service car2go we are developing and testing an infrastructure-based solution for a fully automated valet parking service. For us another step on our way to autonomous driving, or as in this case: towards autonomous parking!”

“Fully automated parking will be ready for mass-production before fully automated driving”, says Dr. Dirk Hoheisel, the responsible Board Member of Bosch. “Low driving speeds and the information from the car park infrastructure enable a fast implementation.”

Bosch is developing the necessary infrastructure for the car park, including parking space occupancy sensors, cameras and the communication technology. Bosch will also account for the communication unit in the vehicle, which also controls the parking process.