Ford Motor Company, Bedrock and Bosch are launching a demonstration project with connected Ford Escape test vehicles that can drive and park themselves inside Bedrock’s Assembly Garage in Detroit using Bosch smart infrastructure. This is the first U.S. infrastructure-based solution for automated valet parking where the vehicle will park itself inside a parking garage.
The connected Ford test vehicles operate with a highly automated manner by vehicle-to-infrastructure (V2I) communication with Bosch’s intelligent parking infrastructure. The infrastructure sensors recognize and localize the vehicle to guide its parking maneuver, including the power to assist avoid pedestrians and other hazards. If the infrastructure senses something in the vehicle’s path, it will stop the vehicle immediately.
Upon arriving into the garage, a driver will leave the vehicle in a designated area and use a smartphone app to send the vehicle into an automatic parking maneuver. Drivers will also use the app to request the return of the vehicle to the designated pick-up area, expediting the parking experience and removing the responsibility of finding the vehicle upon return to the garage.
The research will happen within the Corktown neighborhood, the location of Ford’s new mobility innovation district, anchored by Michigan Central Station.
The demonstration project is going to be on display on the ground floor of Bedrock’s Assembly Garage, the real estate developer’s first residential redevelopment project within the Corktown neighborhood. The project aligns with Bedrock’s vision of mixing ground up and historical developments with the most recent technology in parking and mobility – including the current installation of the Midwest’s first automated parking stall, which parks and retrieves vehicles within the basement of the Free Press Building using street-level load bays.
Automated parking solutions bring value to garage owners by allowing for the more efficient use of spaces inside a parking garage. With automated valet parking, the equivalent amount of space can accommodate up to 20 percent more vehicles.
The automated valet parking technology is going to be running for Assembly tenant and personal demonstrations through the end of September.
