But only for parking purposes.
Ford has filed a patent for an advanced remote parking system that will see users (nearly) reenact a famous scene from the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies. In the flick, 007 leaps out of his sponsored BMW 750i and controls the car via a touchpad on an Ericsson JB988. CarBuzz discovered the patent filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, which hopes to make fiction reality, but with less crashing and killing.
According to Ford, remote park assist (RePA) is designed to autonomously park and unpark a car when the operator is outside the vehicle. These smartphone-based systems are not new, but Ford is taking it up a notch. There are many reasons a person might want to do this, including, but not limited to, a parking space that is too narrow for the driver and their passengers to open the doors once the car is safely parked.
Just imagine parking something sizeable like a Ford Expedition in an underground parking garage, and you get the idea. And for those who struggle to wrap their heads around parallel parking, this system should be a joy.
Ford also states that RePA has limitations and often can't find a viable parking space due to the range detection sensors. Simply put, the car needs more information than its sensors can provide, and that's where a human armed with a set of eyeballs and a smartphone comes in.
Instead of the car operating by itself, the human and the machine will work together via a smartphone with a touchscreen interface. That is the main difference between this new idea and current remote parking systems, where the car does all the work.
First, the car's various sensors (ultrasonic sensors, radar, LiDAR, cameras, and so on) will create an image of the vehicle's surroundings, which will be displayed on the smartphone. The display will include the vehicle's immediate surroundings, such as other cars, pedestrians, walls, et cetera. The display will be scaled according to the actual dimensions to give the operator a better idea of what they're working with. The user can also double-click on the vehicle to rotate it 180 degrees.
Once the vehicle uses the various systems at its disposal to paint a picture, the user can interact with the touchscreen interface to slide the representation of the car into the desired parking space. Ford calls this a user-selected parking spot, and it will be categorized into three categories: valid, invalid, or unknown.
A valid parking spot is the easiest to handle, and the car will calculate a route and get there autonomously. An invalid space is already occupied by a vehicle, in which case the user receives an error message. The user will then be asked to choose another space.
If a parking space is categorized as unknown, things get interesting. Basically, the user can see a viable parking spot, but the car can't (yet). The vehicle will then calculate a path to an intermediate spot between itself and the user-selected parking space to rerun the scanning procedure. It will scan until the car is convinced and changes the status to valid.
Whether the vehicle is positioning itself to rerun a scan or parking autonomously, it requires constant feedback from the driver via an interface on the touchscreen. Ford included an example of this interface as a circular dial. Users would have to constantly run their fingers along this dial to let the car know they are paying attention to the proceedings. The display can also be simplified to an arrow the user can swipe to move the vehicle to a desired position.
It sounds simple enough, but Ford thinks that it can be tricky. Therefore, Ford suggests training modes for first-time users. Ford may even mandate the completion of a tutorial before the system is used in the wild. Experienced users may eventually configure their default settings and displays.
Is this system viable for the real world? Yes. Most of Ford's high-end cars already have enough sensors to create an image and the necessary hardware for autonomous parking. If not, they can be added as part of a facelift or an entirely new model like the rumored three-row electric SUV.
Keyword: Ford Drivers Will Soon Control Their Car From Their Smartphones