Linux-Powered Auto-Parking Car

megmag writes "A really cool project using a Linux P4 machine for automatic parking of a Volvo S60 was presented last week. Take a look at the video. That's how your parking problem should be solved. It is a final-year student project within the mechanical engineering department at Linköping University, Sweden."

Comments

that space would almost fit two cars

[funkdancer]

video is cool, but now try doing it in a real world situation where you've got 60% of that space...

I was surprised to be able to download the vid at full speed, though. :)

Suspicious

[PhysicsGenius]

The article notes that it uses ultrasound sensors to detect the curb and other cars, but I see there are a number of equally spaced white lines painted on the ground (farther out than parking lines are normally painted). How artificial was this test? Can it do arbitrary parallel parking?

Interesting, but dangerous

[grunt107]

Self-driving vehicles (destination by traveler, drive by vehicle) are interesting, but the more removed people get from the driving responsibilities, the worse they actually drive - inattention AND inability both are rising. With the 'self-park', people will now lose another driving skill. That important? Not really - I have rarely PP'd (parallel-parked) - but I believe PPing gives important spatial vehicular training that helps in other driving areas.

Re:This is cool

[robertjw]

Personally I feel that any person that can't manage to park their car shouldn't be allowed to drive it at all.

Of course I also think that at least 80% of the people on the road are scarier than hell and shouldn't be allowed to drive. Don't believe me? Turn on your local news for the first snow storm of the season (if you don't get snow, find the Denver newscast - it's always humorus). I'm always amazed at the way people who live in an area that gets bad weather EVERY YEAR will wreck their car the first time there is three inches of snow. Maybe if we actually taught people how to drive there would be less traffic fatalities in this country - actually, probably not, Everybody knows that traffic accidents are caused by people not wearing their seat belt.

Future Car concepts

[Colourspace]

I see a lot of people scoffing here but were on the brink of the next revolution in personal transport here and nobody seems to be taking notice. Just how long will it be before cars are wirelessly networked together, an onboard PC on each vehicle doing black-box, GPS navigation, localised proximity sensing and collision avoidance, parking, MP3 and entertainment etc - All of which we have the technology for now (but have not quite driven the cost out of yet) When these vehicles are networked via a mesh system to a basestation this could be used to the greater good for traffic networking (ie using data to redirect away from traffic hotspots) and accident/emergency uses. Of course there's privacy issues too - all of which need to be discussed. But if I see another 'linux won't crash' comment...

Re:Future Car concepts

[geoffspear]

When some script kiddie can wirelessly take control of the collision-avoidance system of random drivers' cars and crash them into mine, I for one won't want to be driving anymore.

Of course, at that point car insurance will cost more than your car, because the insurance companies sure as hell aren't going to trust the computers.

Re:Notice how much space is available to park the

[SilveRo_kun]

Dude, this is a student project.... It can be improved a lot if a company works on it. Actually, the japanese already came up with this

What about pedestrians?

[defile]

The hardest and most annoying part about parallel parking for me is constantly checking all of my blind spots to make sure that I'm not about to mangle a pedestrian/stick my car out into oncoming traffic.

How does the parking system handle that, I wonder.

Re:What about pedestrians?

[Iamthefallen]

It doesn't, that's why you control the accelerator.

Re:This is cool

[Last_Available_Usern]

I can reach over to the passenger side and roll the window down, but I'd much rather click a little button next to me that does it automatically. Doesn't mean I don't still know how to roll down a window.

Re:This is cool

[jswhiting]

I just hope nobody takes this anecdotal evidence and makes the wrong conclusion - that men and women have inherent, instrinctive, or otherwise natural propensities for either driving cars or making grocery lists.

Simply put, we get good at what we do, and we "do" gender differences all the time, therefore we get good at them :)

Re:This is cool

[billcopc]

The only reason women get lower rates is because insurance agents, much like bankers, are too damn quirky to get laid, so they use favoritism to steer the materialistic socialites toward their pants.

Re:This is cool

[Anonymous Coward]

maybe watching someone else screw it up from the outside was beneficial as well.

My fiancee and I go rock climbing together. The one who climbes second gets farther, having had a chance to learn from watching another.

Re:This is cool

[cloudmaster]

While "click it or ticket" is a nationwide program with federal funding, it's enforced by the states, and the money from the tickets goes to the state and county of issue.

Anyway, they're approaching the problem in the wrong way. The way to reduce problems due to accidents is to reduce accidents to begin with, not to make people safer if they're involved in an accident. A "no fault" accident is caused by incompetence or bad choices, in general. Enforcing turn signal usage would be a good way to prevent a whole pile of accidents (and a good way to prevent "road rage") before they happen, as would making people actually prove that they can drive *well* rather than just proving that they can memorize some following distances to pass a written test.

There needs to be a friggin' autocross course located behind each and every DMV, IMHO, and if you can't get the provided car (or your own, possibly) though the course in the prescribed time without running over some cones, then you can't navigate the streets adequately and therefore can't have a license. *That* would reduce the number of accidents, and would probably save more money than it'd cost. It'd also get some politicians voted out of office by the old and/or incompetent, and therefore won't happen. :(

Not many people realize...

[Anonymous Coward]

That when YOU don't wear YOUR seat belt, you are endangering others.

How is this?

When accidents occur, it is not always clear who is at fault. What is clear, however, is the financial and legal obligations of the person who is blamed. A damaged car costs money. A dead passenger can cost all the money you have, and land you in jail.

So, when you don't wear your seat belt, you are making it more likely that you will die in a crash, and hence increasing the potential legal ramifications for every other driver on the road.

I don't care how careful a driver you are, you are still financially and legally imperiling other drivers when you don't wear your seat belt.

The same goes for motor cycle helmets.

Please, don't be an asshole.

Re:This is cool

[(54)T-Dub]

How does one get their car to "wrap around" and speed limit sign? Unless you are driving a golf cart wouldn't you simply plow over it? Maybe my exageration meter is broken.

Re:This is cool

[mandalayx]

Personally I feel that any person that can't manage to park their car shouldn't be allowed to drive it at all.

I understand your sentiment: if someone can't even park their car, how can they drive?

But consider that parallel parking, in particular, might be a skill completely independent of actually driving. Here in Orange County you can have a complete and fulfilling driving life without EVER having to parallel park. There is some subset of those folks who are safe drivesr. Are you implying that they can't drive? Of course that's not the case.

I find this amazing.

[Atario]

I had no problem getting it either -- a 3.8 meg video in about a minute, linked directly on the front page of Slashdot...from an overseas server. Now that's impressive. Screw the car, tell me how they pulled off that bandwidth!