How do parking sensors work? Parking tech, radar & remote hands free explained!

CarExpert

How does the parking technology in your car work? Paul Maric explains how ultrasonic and electromagnetic parking sensors work, along with what a radar does when it comes to parking. We also demonstrate automatic parallel, perpendicular and remote parking. Finally, we take you through front and rear parking sensors, along with rear cross-traffic alert and the BMW Reverse Assistant.  There's a lot to get through, but hopefully this explanation and demonstrating gives you a better idea of how all this technology comes together and makes driving your car a much easier task.  The two cars we are using for this test are the Kia Sorento GT-Line ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YU6ildqQ9sc ) and the BMW X5 xDrive30d  Skip Ahead: Intro: 00:00 Sensor Types: 01:01 360° Camera: 04:24 Parking Sensors: 05:40 Remote Parking: 07:50 Parking Assistant: 09:04 Reverse Assistant: 12:40  We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.  Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.  Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1  You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.  Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!  Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!  CarExpert: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au  Paul Maric: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric  #parking #technology #explained

Transcript

00:00 G'day, I'm Paul.

00:01 Recently, we shot a video comparing car headlights, and you guys really enjoyed it and said in

00:06 the comments that you want to see more of these types of videos where we look at modern

00:10 car technology.

00:12 So we thought, let's do a series on the stuff you'll find in modern cars today.

00:17 And today, it is all about parking technology and the type of parking tech you will see

00:22 when you buy your brand new car.

00:23 Today, we're going to look at parking sensors and the different types you can find on cars.

00:28 360 degree camera, remote parking technology, semi-autonomous parking technology, and finally,

00:35 the reverse assistant.

00:36 The two cars that we're using for this are the Kia Sorento and the BMW X5.

00:40 They've got pretty much that whole breadth of technology covered, and we should be able

00:44 to walk through it all.

00:45 If you do want to skip ahead to other parts of this video, you can use the time codes

00:48 up on the screen there, or if you're on YouTube, just scroll down and use the chapters below.

00:52 Now, if you haven't done so already, I'd love it if you could hit subscribe and press the

00:55 bell icon.

00:56 That's going to tell you every single time we publish one of these car tech videos.

01:01 Before we do some actual testing, let's have a quick look at the technology itself.

01:05 Now, there's three main types of parking tech.

01:07 You've got ultrasonic sensors, electromagnetic sensors, and radar as well.

01:12 This is the most common type.

01:13 It's the ultrasonic sensor.

01:15 Now, how does it work?

01:16 Well, it emits sound waves at a frequency that is too high for the human ear to pick

01:21 up, just like when my wife asks me to do the vacuuming and goes in that ear and out that

01:26 ear.

01:27 Anyway, so it emits a sound wave.

01:29 The sound wave then bounces off an object and comes back to the car, and using a simple

01:33 calculation the car is able to determine what distance that object is from the car.

01:38 And for all you nerds out there, the formula is distance equals half time multiplied by

01:43 the speed of sound.

01:44 The speed of sound varies though, depending on temperature and humidity, and that's why

01:47 these cars have temperature sensors, and they can vary that calculation so the car knows

01:51 exactly how close you are to things, and it's never confused too much by humid conditions

01:56 or hot or cold temperatures.

01:57 These are quite similar to radar in the sense of the way that they work.

02:01 They emit a wave, the wave comes back, and then they do a calculation.

02:05 Radar is a whole lot more expensive though.

02:06 These are very cheap.

02:08 The only downside is that while radar works at longer distances and deals well with most

02:13 objects, these don't work well with objects that absorb sound, so things like clothing,

02:19 human flesh, that type of thing, and they also don't work well with objects that reflect

02:23 sound waves, and you can think of things like a metal pole like this.

02:27 If you get a sound wave, hit it, you're only going to have a very narrow beam coming back

02:30 to the car.

02:31 The rest will disperse.

02:32 That is why you have redundancy.

02:33 You've got one here, one there, another one there, another one there, so you'll never

02:36 see a car with just one parking sensor.

02:39 They all team up to find an exact amount of distance between your car and the object that

02:43 you're going into or reversing into.

02:45 Moving on to the second type of parking technology.

02:49 Now while most cars use ultrasonic sensors, you also have electromagnetic sensors.

02:54 The ultrasonic sensor emits a sound wave, whereas the electromagnetic sensor emits a

02:58 radio wave.

02:59 It emits it at a certain frequency.

03:01 Once that wave is blocked by an object, it's reflected back to the car at a different frequency.

03:07 The car's then able to detect the change in frequency and then thus calculate the distance

03:11 between the car and that object.

03:13 Now an electromagnetic sensor just sits behind the bumper bar, and the big advantage is you

03:17 don't actually need to cut holes into the bumper bar and have these ungainly looking

03:22 things.

03:23 They are more common in the aftermarket though.

03:24 We can't actually think of any new cars on the market today that have electromagnetic

03:28 sensors, so I'm letting on you guys here, the smart viewers.

03:30 Let me know in the comments section below which new cars on the market today have electromagnetic

03:35 sensors, and if you can't think of any, which older cars have you found with electromagnetic

03:39 sensors.

03:40 Finally, the third type, radar.

03:42 You can't see it, can you?

03:44 That's because it's behind the bumper bar.

03:46 So unlike the front radar you'll find on a lot of new cars today that deals with safety

03:50 systems and radar cruise control, there's a radar mounted in this section of the car

03:54 that actually points this way.

03:56 Now when you think about it, you can't have a radar on the back because the waves are

04:00 emitted like this, whereas a radar on the side, the waves come out like this and it's

04:04 able to detect oncoming vehicles, and this is used for things like rear cross traffic

04:08 alert.

04:09 If you're reversing out into a blind spot and there is a vehicle, a cyclist or an object

04:13 coming towards the car, you're not going to be able to see it.

04:16 So that radar sits behind this section of the car, the other section, and then some

04:19 also have them mounted to the front, so you have both coverage at the front and the rear.

04:24 So all of these sensors are important, but equally as important is the visual aspect.

04:28 And we all know about the reverse view camera.

04:30 It's common on a lot of cars today, but the advancement of that is called the 360 degree

04:35 camera or the bird's eye view as it's also known.

04:39 That basically takes the reverse camera, a camera at the front of the car plus these

04:43 wide angle cameras on the wing mirrors and stitches the image together so you get a view

04:48 from top down and it gives you better visibility around the car.

04:51 Let's see what that looks like.

04:52 Okay, so we'll flick the car on, we will pop it into drive and I'll manually activate the

04:57 cameras here.

04:58 So there it is there, you can see an overlay of the car plus everything around it.

05:02 The car is manually taking all of the images from these cameras and stitching them together

05:06 so you get a live view of the front and then this bird's eye view, the 360 degree view.

05:12 This is particularly handy if you live in an apartment building, for example, like I

05:15 do, you can see clearly where the walls are and then even in these situations here as

05:19 you're traversing some of these bays, you'll never have an excuse for not being able to

05:24 get the car perfectly within the parking bay.

05:26 And then you can also select different views as well.

05:28 So you can see there the wheel view, so you will never curb those wheels either.

05:32 So not all cars have good quality 360 cameras, so just make sure you test this out before

05:37 you buy the car because they won't all look as sharp as this one does.

05:40 And let's move into the test of the ultrasonic sensors here.

05:43 So we're coming into a parking bay here.

05:46 We'll test the front parking sensor first.

05:49 So you can see that 360 degree camera is handy for getting us into the bay.

05:53 We're approaching an object at the front of the car.

05:55 Those sensors are now emitting those sound waves, determining how close we are.

06:00 And as we get closer, you see the intensity of the beeps increase and then finally you

06:05 get a red indicator showing you that yes, you are hard up against that object and you

06:09 don't want to be going any further.

06:10 Okay, what about reverse parking sensors?

06:13 It looks like someone's put a suitcase in the way.

06:16 These work in the same way, but in reverse.

06:18 Let's see what happens as we approach it.

06:19 Okay, the car has just slammed the brakes and it's come up saying emergency braking.

06:24 Now the reason it's done that is because this car has reverse AEB.

06:28 So it works the same as AEB does going forwards.

06:31 It stops the car if you don't as you're about to hit something.

06:34 Now imagine if that was a kid or a person that's walked behind your car.

06:38 It's able to use those ultrasonic sensors to detect that and slam the brakes on so you

06:41 don't hit them.

06:42 This is crucial technology and why we think it should be fitted to every single new car

06:46 today.

06:47 Now I bet you're wondering where does the radar come into play in all of this?

06:49 Well an ultrasonic sensor only really works well three to five metres away from the car.

06:54 The radar on the other hand can look further down the road and these side radars built

06:58 into the bumper bar are used for things called rear cross traffic alert.

07:02 That's able to detect cars, pedestrians, cyclists that are walking, driving, cycling towards

07:07 the car and when you're wedged in next to an SUV like this and you really can't see

07:12 anything until you're well and truly in that line of traffic, this is where it's going

07:16 to come in handy.

07:17 So let's give this a shot.

07:18 So I'm reversing out of the park here and there's a car coming right there.

07:24 Okay.

07:25 So it has automatically slammed the brakes on, given me a warning that there was a vehicle

07:30 coming and you can see here that I still can't see beyond this SUV.

07:35 So had I have not seen that, there was every chance that I would have run into that.

07:39 Obviously people are meant to drive out slowly and be careful, but in situations where you

07:43 have a car that's moving quickly or you're just not paying attention, this kind of technology

07:47 could potentially save you from having a nasty accident.

07:50 Okay, next up we have remote parking.

07:52 Now this feature was first made popular by Tesla because they rolled it out in the Model

07:56 S and they call it Summon and it's now advanced enough to be able to bring the car to you

08:01 from a distance in a car park, which I think is pretty cool.

08:04 And I was going to demonstrate it with my Model 3, but I refused to pay $10,000 for

08:09 the full self-driving package.

08:11 So instead we're going to use the Kia Sorento, which has a feature very similar to that that

08:16 works using the key fob.

08:17 So what exactly is the purpose of this?

08:20 Well, right on cue, our obnoxious friend in the BMW has turned up and made it quite hard

08:25 for me to get inside the car.

08:27 Anyway, let me show you how it works.

08:29 So we come back here, got to push lock, push the hold button, that will kick the car over.

08:34 Once it's on, we can either select forwards or reverse.

08:39 We're going to go reverse so I can actually get inside the car.

08:42 So the reverse lights come on and then the car will slowly come back towards us.

08:47 Here it comes.

08:49 So the sensors are working the whole time to make sure it doesn't hit anything.

08:52 Just to show you that it works, I'll let it come back towards me and hopefully stop.

08:58 There it is there.

08:59 It pops your uncle.

09:00 I can now get in the car and get away from this bloke.

09:03 Okay, so we've just hopped into the BMW and this has some technology that you're going

09:08 to find handy if all of the parking sensors in the world, the 360 degree cameras, all

09:12 the radars and stuff still don't inspire you with confidence.

09:16 And that is semi-autonomous parking.

09:18 And there's two main types, parallel and perpendicular.

09:21 So we've got a perpendicular park here in between these two cars and I want to show

09:25 you how it works.

09:26 So what the car does using parking sensors that point outwards from the front and the

09:30 rear, it starts measuring spaces to determine whether the predefined size of this car can

09:35 actually fit in there.

09:36 So we can see right now that we've gone past this park and it said yes, you can actually

09:41 fit into that park.

09:42 So we're going to come to a stop, you select the symbol there and it begins the process.

09:48 It'll put it into reverse, it'll put it into drive, it'll do everything.

09:51 So even from this super awkward angle it's going to take care of everything.

09:54 All I'm doing is just hovering over the brake pedal.

09:58 Now this is a perpendicular park, you'll see we get close to there.

10:02 It's now put it into drive and turned the car around all the way.

10:06 This is such cool stuff.

10:08 I love that modern cars are able to do all of this.

10:11 Okay, so it's back into reverse now and it is taking care of that process.

10:16 I'll be curious to see how straight it is within this park because it's a fairly tight

10:22 park but I'm curious to see whether we're still in the lines and you'll be able to see

10:27 it with this 360 camera.

10:28 There we go, it's still going back.

10:31 Look at that, that's actually like perfect and it will come to a stop on its own as well

10:36 once it's done.

10:37 And there it is there.

10:41 Park complete.

10:42 How cool is that?

10:43 Now that system also works with parallel parking and arguably this is generally the more difficult

10:49 thing to do because perpendicular you can kind of sort of figure it out but here it

10:53 can sometimes be a little bit daunting.

10:54 So what it's doing now, same story, it's checking to see if this gap that we're coming past

10:58 now is big enough for the car.

11:00 So it's still measuring it and there it is there.

11:05 It is telling us it is big enough for the car.

11:07 So same story, we click this button, it does the whole thing autonomously.

11:12 So all I'm doing is hovering over the brake.

11:14 I'm not really going to touch it but because it's Eagle's car we're backing into.

11:17 I also don't want to hit that.

11:21 Alright here it is, so it's pulling in nicely.

11:25 This is cool.

11:26 I'm always conscious of kerbs as well especially with SUVs with such big wheels.

11:29 Okay so it is getting closer and closer.

11:32 It's come to a stop on its own there, put itself into drive and it's bringing us forward

11:36 to complete the park.

11:39 There it is.

11:40 Okay now so you've used your parallel parking feature to get you into the park but how do

11:44 you get out of it?

11:45 Because if you've used the computer to get in you're probably not going to be able to

11:48 get out.

11:49 So most of the vehicles that have this parallel parking semi-autonomous technology also have

11:53 an exit assistant and it works much the same way.

11:56 So we hit this button here, it says to us if you're leaving the parking space confirm

12:00 the direction.

12:01 So we want to go forward and it begins a process again.

12:04 So it'll take us back and then it will start the process of clearing enough room to the

12:09 car in front for us to be able to leave safely.

12:13 There it is there and it's giving us a little bit more room.

12:19 Okay it needs a slight bit more room, so it'll back up slightly more.

12:25 Can I head where we get close?

12:28 Okay a little bit more.

12:35 Okay park complete, take over control of the vehicle.

12:38 That means we're clear of the car in front and we're good to drive off.

12:42 Finally some technology that initially I thought was incredibly pointless but when you think

12:46 about it it's actually useful.

12:48 It's called reverse assistant.

12:49 It comes in BMWs, I suspect they'll roll it out to other brands and stuff like that in

12:54 the future.

12:55 But the purpose of this is it remembers the last 50 meters of steering input.

12:59 So let's pretend right now we're going down a narrow laneway.

13:05 We've got a nice set of wheels on our car and we're reaching the end of the laneway

13:11 which is just over there where our suitcase is and we've discovered that it is a dead

13:18 end.

13:19 How are you going to get back without scuffing the wheels or damaging anything?

13:22 So if you stick it in reverse, hit reverse assistant.

13:25 It gives you a 50 meter countdown and takes over steering.

13:28 It remembers the last 50 meters of steering inputs and will then guide you back precisely

13:33 where it went.

13:34 And we've set up a little course here with the Sorento and the MX-5 to make sure that

13:39 this all works.

13:40 It's actually doing a good job so far and it's able to remember your steering inputs

13:45 even after you've left the car.

13:47 So if you've gone off on holiday or something like that for a month it will still remember

13:51 the steering inputs when you come back.

13:53 So I don't know, that's just in case you left your car in the laneway and decided to come

13:56 back to it later.

13:57 It's pretty impressive.

13:58 I think it's doing like the exact same path that we took.

14:01 I'm not going to take the front end of Igor's car off either which is good.

14:06 Working a charm, so we're getting down to our last 10 meters.

14:11 That's pretty close.

14:14 8, 7, so once that hits zero I suspect it'll just tell us to take over steering.

14:20 2 meters, 1 meter.

14:23 We'll actually probably just end up right where we started.

14:27 Look at that.

14:29 That's cool.

14:30 So exactly 50 meters as well by the way, fun fact.

14:32 So that is reverse assistant.

14:34 Hopefully we'll see that roll out into some more cars because I think this is really handy.

14:37 I know I've been in a situation or two, especially in expensive cars where you just don't want

14:42 to scuff wheels or damage anything, where something like this would come in incredibly

14:45 handy.

14:46 So there it is, parking technology explained.

14:48 There is some seriously cool tech out there and it's okay to admit if you use some of

14:53 it from time to time.

14:54 I know that parking sensors, I could not live life without those and I've come dangerously

14:58 close to hitting things anyway with them, so everybody needs a little bit of assistance

15:02 every now and then.

15:03 Now moving on to our next video, we want your help to figure out exactly what we should

15:07 film next.

15:08 Is there a piece of car tech that you want more, I guess, knowledge on, want us to expand

15:12 on a little bit more?

15:13 Is there something you don't understand?

15:14 Let us know in the comments section below.

15:16 We'll put all these ideas together and we'll see what we can come up with in terms of the

15:19 next video in this series on explaining car technology in an easy to understand fashion.

15:25 If you did enjoy this video though, please make sure you share it because that helps

15:28 us grow our channel.

15:30 Also hit the like button and don't forget to subscribe as well and hit the bell icon

15:33 because that will tell you every single time we publish one of these explainer videos.

15:38 But until next time, take it easy.

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