You may have heard of Google’s driver-less or autonomous car, but Google is not the only company dabbling in autonomous driving technology. German car-maker, Audi, and Swedish car-maker, Volvo, have also made significant strides in this field. We have already seen cars that can drive themselves, but Volvo is the first company that is taking this technology a step further.

Recently, the company published a press release announcing that it had developed a self-parking car. It even released a video that demonstrates the self-parking abilities of this prototype.

How Volvo Self Parking Works

This prototype developed by Volvo uses sensors – that are hidden from view – to sense other cars, people and other obstacles to navigate its way to a free parking spot. Most importantly, it also interacts with other cars to navigate as safely as possible. The fact that all its sensors are hidden from view is a huge advancement in its field too.

One drawback with this technology is that it interacts only with Vehicle 2 Infrastructure technology. This infrastructure technology is an initiative that makes roads, parking lots, etc. much safer.  So this self-parking feature can only be activated in parking lots that have the right sensors and transmitters that can communicate with the car.

If the parking lot has this special infrastructure technology, it will inform this Volvo prototype car and driver. The driver can then stop the car at the entrance, get out and use his/her smartphone to command the care to park itself. The parking lot sends the location of the nearest free spot to the car and once the car has parked itself, it sends a notification to the driver via the smartphone about the parking spot.

When the driver wants to leave, he/she can use a smartphone to tell the car to drive itself to the pick-up point. This means that the driver does not have to waste time parking the car or getting it out of the parking lot.

When Can We Expect This Volvo Car

Unfortunately, the self-parking technology is still in the development and testing phases and will take years to perfect. However, Volvo is dedicated to making the safest car in the world and will be including autonomous steering in its Volvo XC90 due to be released in 2014. According to Volvo, you may see the self-parking feature in cars much sooner than you think. The company has been a pioneer in the field of autonomous driving and was the only car-maker that participated in the SARTRE (Safe Road Trains for the Environment) project.

Do you think it will have a ‘double parking’ function? (Malaysian joke). Post a thought in the comments below.

Photo Credit: Volvo Cars US / YouTube.com