The German Aerospace Centre in Braunschweig, Lower Saxony, this week tested its clever car parking system in a public space for the first time.
The driver pulled up outside the city's train station and walked off, leaving the car to find a parking spot and put itself neatly there. When the driver "returned" from his fictional journey, a simple call via a smartphone to the car was enough to summon it to the front of the station, ready to be driven home.
"There are a number of scenarios for highly automated driving, and parking is one of the most interesting," Professor Karsten Lemmer at the DLR's Institute of Transportation Systems told The Local.
"We wanted to demonstrate the abilities we have developed. And to do it in a public setting was also important. It was fascinating to see how the system was able to park exactly over and over again - to the centimetre."
