Sometimes after a long day at the office it can be such a chore to roll your chair back to its place and push it in. You’ve spent all day collating TPS reports and affixing cover sheets and you just want to get home and relax. It’s not that you’re a bad office worker, it’s just that putting your chair back in its place is just not a priority right now. It’s for people like you that Nissan designed the intelligent parking office chair.
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OK, so the scenario is a bit exaggerated. No one needs a chair that automatically returns to its spot after use. But it’s a great analogy for parking, which CAN be a real chore when you don’t feel up to it. The chairs work similarly to Nissan’s intelligent park assist feature. Their position is monitored by four overhead cameras, and they have motors to propel and steer them to their set positions. It’s actually pretty easy when each chair only has one fixed parking spot every day. How does Nissan get its cars to park themselves wherever you choose?
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How does Nissan park assist work?
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Nissan park assist uses the four cameras in the vehicle’s Around View Monitor system to get the lay of the land. The cameras are located in the front grille, the rear trunk release and under each side mirror. Once the driver has picked a spot using the parking guide and moved into a good starting position, the computer in the car does some geometry. This involves the vehicle trajectory, radius of gyration, something about a hypotenuse … and frankly we don’t understand it. But once the math is done, the driver just has to control the pedals and the car steers itself into the parking spot. Isn’t technology great?
Do you look forward to a future of autonomous cars or do you prefer the old-fashioned do-it-yourself approach to driving? Let us know in the comments below.
