System and methods for identifying unoccupied parking positions

• Main Authors: Banvait, Harpreestsingh, Micks, Ashley Elizabeth, Myers, Scott Vincent, Jain, Jinesh J
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 27.10.2020
• Subjects: ANALOGOUS ARRANGEMENTS USING OTHER WAVES; CALCULATING; COMPUTING; CONJOINT CONTROL OF VEHICLE SUB-UNITS OF DIFFERENT TYPE ORDIFFERENT FUNCTION; CONTROL SYSTEMS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR HYBRID VEHICLES; COUNTING; DETERMINING DISTANCE OR VELOCITY BY USE OF RADIO WAVES; GYROSCOPIC INSTRUMENTS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS; LAND VEHICLES FOR TRAVELLING OTHERWISE THAN ON RAILS; LOCATING OR PRESENCE-DETECTING BY USE OF THE REFLECTION ORRERADIATION OF RADIO WAVES; MEASURING; MEASURING DISTANCES, LEVELS OR BEARINGS; MOTOR VEHICLES; NAVIGATION; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHOTOGRAMMETRY OR VIDEOGRAMMETRY; PHYSICS; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RADIO DIRECTION-FINDING; RADIO NAVIGATION; RECOGNITION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; ROAD VEHICLE DRIVE CONTROL SYSTEMS FOR PURPOSES NOT RELATED TOTHE CONTROL OF A PARTICULAR SUB-UNIT; SIGNALLING; SURVEYING; TESTING; TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS; TRAILERS; TRANSPORTING; VEHICLES IN GENERAL

A vehicle includes one or more laterally mounted microphones and a controller programmed to detect a signature of an unoccupied position adjacent the vehicle in outputs of the microphones. The signature may be identified using a machine learning algorithm. In response to detecting an unoccupied position, the controller may invoke autonomous parking, store the location of the unoccupied position for later use, and/or report the unoccupied position to a server, which then informs other vehicles of the available parking. The unoccupied position may be verified by evaluating whether map data indicates legal parking at that location. The unoccupied position may also be confirmed with one or more other sensors, such as a camera, LIDAR, RADAR, SONAR, or other type of sensor.