Official News page 7

REAL LIFE NEWS: HELP WITH PARKING

by Hazed

I am terrible at parking. I know, it's embarrassing to admit I conform to one of the female stereotypes, but I am. I would love to have some kind of aid to help me back into a tight spot.

If I have problems manoevring my tiny little car into parking spaces, imagine the problems a huge truck-and-trailer rig has moving around a confined area such as a shipping yard or loading dock to park. Now a team at Daimler Chrysler in Stuttgart, Germany, has developed a way to let the vehicle do it automatically.

A team from the company has fitted a truck with laser scanners which build a map of the immediate vicinity, check for obstacles and assess the amount of space available for moving around in. The driver can then point out the desirable parking space on a dashboard touch screen - or the system can select its own space. Special motion-planning software then breaks the space into a grid and calculates the most efficient path into it.

Never mind truck drivers - I want one of these!

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