City parking is coveted and often quite hard to find. Sometimes people walk blocks from a parking garage just to get to their desired location. An industry-leading lidar company, Velodyne Lidar, Inc. has developed an autonomous driving technology from HoloMatic that will eliminate the stress of locating parking spots. The HoloMatic system, HoloParking, is China’s very first smart valet parking solution that operates 24/7 and in all weather conditions.
[Image Source: Velodyne]
Unique to the system, HoloParking requires no human direction or monitoring. A driver simply leaves the vehicle at the entrance of the parking lot, where HoloParking will then find a space for it, and the car will move on its own to the space. When a driver is ready to pick up their vehicle, they can start the system remotely, and the car will drive from the parking spot to the boarding area. At no time does the driver need to enter the parking lot.
Velodyne’s smart lidar sensors are the key to this technology, delivering high-resolution and three-dimensional information regarding the surrounding area.
Founder and CEO of HoloMatic, Dr. Kai Ni says, “Almost every driver has a horror story of being involved in a long search for a parking spot that adds time pressures and worries about keeping an appointment. HoloParking makes the parking process easy and stress-free for drivers. Velodyne’s industry-leading lidar sensors enable the HoloParking system to navigate complex parking structures, severe weather conditions, and people and objects around the vehicle.”
The reason HoloParking works so well in virtually any situation is due to the wide array of sensors included in the tech. The system can work in low-light, severe weather conditions, and in a parking lot that combines people and other vehicles. HoloParking provides safe and dependable parking services that people can count on.
Executive Director APAC, Velodyne Lidar, Wei Weng says, “HoloMatic has created an innovative autonomous driving solution that can operate around the clock and under all weather conditions, from vehicle drop-off to pick-up. The HoloParking system taps the full power of Velodyne’s rich computer perception data to help vehicles determine the safest path to a parking spot.”
HoloParking will be implemented in select cities in China, with the initial rollout starting in Shanghai. The company predicts that by 2020, they will have locations in 20 cities with at least 20 parking lots per city.
