[Shuto]

Bolt may be the first GM product with this technology baked in...

The Chevrolet Bolt also features its own app that allows the owner’s smartphone to operate as a key fob, manage ride-sharing, and initiate the conceptual park-and-retrieve technology. The latter turns the Bolt into its own valet, parking itself while the driver is dropped off at the entrance to the mall, for example. The information can also be displayed on the Bolt’s 10-inch capacitive touch screen. And that’s not all, as the Chevrolet Bolt Concept was also designed with DC fast charging in mind.

 

[Raymondjram]

This idea isn't new but one has to analize how it will be performed. There are two methods that I understand: GPS and dead reckoing. The first needs a precise (down to the inch) level of exact positioning, and exact distance calculations between the Bolt and the external obstacles (walls, curbs, columns, and other vehicles). This method will need a hugh amount of memory, processing power and extremely fast processing. I can give an analogy of how difficult it is. Try walking around your own vehicle blind and without touching it!


The second method is simpler and needs no GPS processing. It is based on how blind persons really can walk around by sensing (sound and touch) and measuring distances and directions. In a way, it is how ships in the past traveled and how sea navigations began.

The sensors determine distances from exiting obstacles, and they can measure down to fractions of inches. Then the vehicle must measure how far it is traveling and in which direction. By just establishing a distance limit around obsatcles, it can move around and not hit anything or anyone. The "valet" function to return to the driver will just need to know how far it has to travel.

Let's wait and see which method GM will use!

 

[Shuto]

This idea isn't new but one has to analize how it will be performed. There are two methods that I understand: GPS and dead reckoing. The first needs a precise (down to the inch) level of exact positioning, and exact distance calculations between the Bolt and the external obstacles (walls, curbs, columns, and other vehicles). This method will need a hugh amount of memory, processing power and extremely fast processing. I can give an analogy of how difficult it is. Try walking around your own vehicle blind and without touching it!


The second method is simpler and needs no GPS processing. It is based on how blind persons really can walk around by sensing (sound and touch) and measuring distances and directions. In a way, it is how ships in the past traveled and how sea navigations began.

The sensors determine distances from exiting obstacles, and they can measure down to fractions of inches. Then the vehicle must measure how far it is traveling and in which direction. By just establishing a distance limit around obsatcles, it can move around and not hit anything or anyone. The "valet" function to return to the driver will just need to know how far it has to travel.

Let's wait and see which method GM will use!

OR... we go and get them, old school style... I don't know when we became so entitled that remembering and heading to where we left our personal mobility became such a chore on the human mind that it needed to be outsourced to 1's and 0's...

 

[Raymondjram]

GM will offer this feature because the competition is offering it at different levels. Ford already has "Park Assist" (I tried it and it works!) in many of their models in the "Platinum" versions. The vehicle will make the turns and navigate the distances, while you follow the instructions on the display: when to shift to "D" or "R", when to accelerate, and when to brake. The next level is having the vehicle do it all by itself, and Ford has done so in a Focus (you can find it on YouTube).

Some of the luxury imports also have self parking, but not self retrieval, and as I posted before, if the vehicle remembers how far and what directions it took when it parked, it can return to the same spot it started from (this is part of "dead reckoning"). If you order it to return from a different point, it has to carefully navigate again using its sensors to get to your new position (from where you are holding the fob).

We will see more self-driving features in future vehicles, so let GM have a shot of doing it first with the Chevy Bolt.

 

[Roth33d]

Not all that surprising that this is going to happen, Audi displayed their version of this at a media event. On the plus side you don't have to shell out nearly $100k to have that level of luxury.