Automatic Parking Controller with a Twin Artificial Neural Network Architecture

We propose an artificial deep neural network- (ANN-) based automatic parking controller that overcomes a stubborn restriction prevalent in traditional approaches. The proposed ANN learns human-like control laws for automatic parking through supervised learning from a training database generated by computer-aided optimizations or real experiments. By learning the relationships between the instantaneous vehicle states and the corresponding maneuver parameters, the proposed twin controller yields lateral and longitudinal maneuvering parameters for executing automatic parking tasks in confined spaces. The proposed automatic parking controller exhibits a twin architecture comprising a main agent and its cloned agent. Before the main agent assumes a maneuvering action, the cloned agent predicts the consequences of the maneuvering action through a Collision Checking and Adjustment (CCA) system. The proposed parking agent operates like a human driver in a manner that is characterized by an unplanned trajectory. In addition, the kinematics of the subject vehicle is not exactly modelled for parking control. The simulation results demonstrate that the proposed twin agent emulates the attributes of a human driver such as adaptive control and determines the consequences of the tentative maneuvering action under varying kinematic models of the subject vehicle. We validate the proposed parking controller by simulating the software-in-the-loop architecture using a PreScan simulator in which the dynamics of the virtual vehicle’s behavior resemble a real vehicle.