You’re on the third lap around the car park, there are no open spaces, and you’re already 15 minutes late for your appointment. Right now you’re wishing you could jump out of the car and let it go find its own spot.
Now there’s an app for that. Virtual Valet lets your iPhone tell your car to park without you in it. “You pull up to the roadside, push a button on your smartphone and the car takes care of everything else,” says Aeron Steinfeld, the lead researcher for the project at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
To find its own spot, the system uses a sensor suite similar to those found in many luxury cars. This includes a motion sensor that scans for moving cars and pedestrians, and a forward-facing laser rangefinder normally found in adaptive cruise control to determine the distance of objects in front of the car. Information from these sensors is then fed to an onboard computer to plan the vehicle’s course. The user can watch the whole process from his or her phone.
Better still, it will be affordable. The team has spent the last year moving from high-end imaging and processing equipment to less expensive components. In experiments, the vehicle was able to navigate through a crowded parking structure, find an empty spot, and park all on its own. And the greatest appeal of the Virtual Valet Parking App is that it requires no change to existing parking facilities or infrastructure.
For the moment, the only car equipped for control by Virtual Valet is Carnegie Mellon’s modified (改进的) Jeep Wrangler, which the researchers have named NavLab11. But Steinfeld hopes that major car manufacturers will adopt the technology.
It might be more than technology that holds up the show, however. Self-driving cars have been licensed in only three US states — California, Nevada and Florida — and it’s unclear how this app would agree with self-driving laws. Until these questions are settled, your insurance provider might be unwilling to cover a ding from a parking incident.
【小题1】It can be learned from the second paragraph that .| A．parking lots are too crowded |
| B．parking spaces are too limited |
| C．your car can park automatically via a smartphone app |
| D．you can leave your car alone if you can’t find a parking spot |
| A．How to determine the distance of objects. |
| B．How the Virtual Valet Parking App works. |
| C．How to use the system. |
| D．How to analyze the information about the vehicle’s course. |
| A．It is very cheap. |
| B．It can help your car park wherever you want. |
| C．It is very convenient to use. |
| D．It can adapt to the present parking facilities. |
| A．no car manufacturers show interest in the technology |
| B．there will be some difficulties in promoting the technology |
| C．the technology is now widely used in the US |
| D．the technology conflicts with self-driving laws in the US |
