X-by-Wire Park Assistance for Electric City Cars

An innovative semi-automatic X-by-Wire Park Assistance system has been designed by the Continental Automotive France company, integrated in a “TH!NK” City EV demo-car for the European funded project POLLUX. This system is based on a handy joystick-driven actuation, able to control simultaneously steering, gear and traction engine during parking maneuvers in a semi-automatic way. Successive turnings front and rear are automatically programmed, so that the driver doesn’t need to actuate several times on pedal, gear selector and steering wheel during the maneuvers. The Cartesian XY position of the joystick defines a ‘vector’ control, used to program and adjust steering direction, speed and amplitudes of the vehicle movements with a high accuracy during the maneuvers for parking, facilitated by the fast, secure and accurate controllability of electric type motors. A description is given of the main principles, of the fast prototyping system integrated into the electrical demo-car, and finally of some of the results.