AUTOVALET:
Platform Independent Autonomous Parking
Summary
We have developed a platform-independent software stack that enables driverless cars to autonomously search a crowded indoor parking garage for a free spot and park itself in that spot. We have made it model-independent and easy to interface with existing autonomous vehicles. Our advisors include Dr. Garry Glaspell (GRL), Prof. John Dolan (CMU), Dr. Dimitrios Apostolopolous (NREC).
Use Case
Snoopy is taking a ride to the mall in his autonomous car. Once he reaches the entranceof the parking garage, he observes that it is huge and seemingly full, with not a free spot in sight.To make matters worse, the mall closes at 8pm and it is already 7:45pm. He is desperate to make it in and out before the mall closes.
Luckily, he realizes he need not worry be-cause his car is equipped with the new Auto-Valet feature that can do the tedious parkingsearch for him! He switches the auto-park mode on, and leaves the car to park itself. He grace-fully walks out of his car to the supermarket without even taking a look at his car parking.The car then goes on its adventure for finding a parking spot
The car uses the auto-park feature to explore the parking garage by constructing a 3D map while simultaneously localizing itself within the map. As the car traverses the garage, it continually searches for available parking spots. After traversing the first section of the garage, the car still has not found a spot, but the car turns at the intersection and begins searching through the next row of spots. Finally, a free spot is seen up ahead.
After the spot is detected, the car plans an approach path to the spot. After reach-ing the spot, it safely parks itself and stores its final location (Fig.3).The final location is then updated onto the AutoValet app.Meanwhile, Snoopy makes it well in time to buy his items. Once he is done, he checks his AutoValet app to see where his car is parked