Automated Parking Space Allocation during Transition with both Human-Operated and Autonomous Vehicles

As fully automated valet parking systems are being developed, there is a transition period during which both human-operated vehicles (HVs) and autonomous vehicles (AVs) are present in the same parking infrastructure. This paper addresses the problem of allocation of a parking space to an AV without conflicting with the parking space chosen by the driver of a HV. A comprehensive assessment of the key factors that affect the preference and choice of a driver for a parking space is established by the fuzzy comprehensive method. The algorithm then generates a ranking order of the available parking spaces to first predict the driver’s choice of parking space and then allocate a space for the AV. The Floyd algorithm of shortest distance is used to determine the route for the AV to reach its parking space. The proposed allocation and search algorithm is applied to the examples of a parking lot with three designed scenarios. It is shown that parking space can be reasonably allocated for AVs.