Most people agree that parking is one of the most annoying aspects of driving a car but as it turns out, Ford may have found a way around this menace.
After uncounted hours (and dollars) spent on research and development, the American automobile heavyweight has finally come up with technology that allows a car to park itself. the only participation required by the driving is diminished to a single push of a button, and he needn’t even be in the car when doing so.
Based on current production spec. technology such as Active Park Assist and PowerShift Transmission, the R&D team over at Ford have used the ever-popular Focus as a guinea pig to test this latest development. The car takes autonomous control of the gear shift, forward and backward movement, and steering too. Ford are calling it the ‘Fully Assisted Parking Aid’ system, and have even released a video of the prototype in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQjntXvMVTE&feature=youtu.be
That isn’t all though, as Ford also introduced an anti-collision system that they’re calling Obstacle Avoidance, through as part of the same prototype. The car automatically detects slow moving or stationary objects that are in it’s path, and if the driver doesn’t take action to avoid them despite the system’s warning, it overrides the drivers control over the car and automatically slows down and changes lanes to avoid hitting the object. The prototype has also been videotaped while engaging this technology, and you can watch the video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYLwJY3CU18&feature=youtu.be
The Obstacle Avoidance system does throw up a few red herrings in terms of how it actually functions and what its limitations are, issues that Ford haven’t really addressed yet. However, when the Fully Assisted Parking aid is finally integrated into production models of Ford cars, at least you won’t need to suck in your gut or wiggle backward and forward because the gap between your car and the one next to yours isn’t wide enough in a crowded parking lot. It’s safe to say all the drivers out there will be quite grateful for this.
