Would you like a coach that parks itself?

[Tall Tex]

I started a thread a couple of days ago asking what people thought about the new Cornerstone's active cruise and collision avoidance. Of the few responses so far they are mostly favorable. So what technology is next?

I've observed that many coach accidents happen while maneuvering slowly in tight places. So what if the coach could park itself, like the high tech cars that parallel park on their own. What are your thoughts about this?

If this is too far out, what about having sensors that warn you you're backing into a power pedalstal, or your about to have tree limbs scratch your clear coat, or that pipe at the truck stop is going to take out a bay door. These technologies are available on cars, why not your next coach. What do you think?

[HarleyOutlaw]

It would be nice to have sensors in the bumpers, like your car, that would beep as you got closer to something.

[Saltydog44]

After 3 months traveling with a number of others:

1. A sensor for low, hard to see items like pedestals or even uneven terrain would be useful (We dragged the front end across a swale that was just a little too low to allow me to clear the rise on the far side before the wheels started up.)

2. A sensor for when you have gotten too close to a tree or branch to allow the slide topper to clear (NOT me that time)

All this stuff is avoidable but every little bit helps.

Not too sure about parking though - getting into the site isn't the only issue - being positioned for hookups and tables/patios and such would be hard to program for.

[RubiconTrail]

I did last year on my way back to Middlebury to pick up the coach.

Got on the train in Sacramento about noon, enjoyed the scenery over the Sierras, went to bed to get across Nevada and woke up as we approached the Wasatch and crossed the Utah desert into the Colorado Rockies. Went to bed again and missed out on mile of flat fields and woke up in time to spend a few hours before we got to Chicago, change trains and get to South Bend for the evening.

I want a Google Coach!!!!

I enjoy driving, I really do. I especially enjoy driving the Anthem. But sometimes it would be nice to set the Google Cruise and miss a big chunk that I've seen a dozen times and don't really care for, and wake up refreshed in time to really enjoy some country I haven't seen before, or to get off the interstate and look around.

[Skip426]

That would be great ; then my DW could just tell the coach , that it's not parked where she wanted it.

Excuse me time to change my sign-in code again ; and unsubscribe to this thread before an up-date gets into my e mail.

[Gary.Jones]

Frankly, Tall Tex, the answer is NO.

I actually enjoy driving this machine, and I am more than willing to do what needs to be done to put her where she needs to go, and enjoy the challenge of not hitting anything or anyone else in the process. My fingers are crossed that it stays that way.

I would enjoy more cameras in the back which largely obviates the need for sensors. A high camera and a low camera might be nice. And what cars do in parking themselves is simple, pass your first driving test in Pennsylvania at 16 years old, parallel parking (something that people and cars rarely do any more in large parts of the country) and I rather doubt that it is going to be a short time before someone develops a parking system that can make a 90 degree turn into a RV park pad, or a 45 degree "back down a windy road to the garage" system. And since I pull a toad, backing is something that I do rarely enough that it is not much of an issue. I go forward 99.5% of the time. However, I have observed that some are much better at backing up than others, but most seem to be able to do it themselves.

Gary

[Cruzer]

I'm not a big fan of "autopilot" type things and enjoy driving. However a few assists don't hurt any. The Total Vision motorized rear camera (now used on 2017 Cornerstones) that I installed is a big help. I got stuck in a fuel lane at a truck stop where they guy that pulled ahead of me must have went in to take a shower or something. I had to back out with the Jeep behind for about 75' in order to get out of the fuel island lane. The camera let me monitor the hitch so that I could do that without jackknifing the Jeep.

The biggest concern is in tight spots, such as when backing into a campsite with pedestal, shrubbery, picnic tables, rocks and the like all around. The rear camera won't cover the slides so you need a spotter. However, I recently tested a King Aire and it had a neat feature. It came with the same Total Vision camera system that I have but there was a rocker switch by the monitor to engage a "360 View". Pressing this switch turned the large monitor into a split screen, with the rear camera on the right and a satellite view on the left. Now I know it's impossible to have a satellite view from some kind of eye-in-the-sky camera on an RV but I found out how it works.

The system has a number of cameras that are mounted up high on the sides and front and rear of the coach that are all looking downward. All of these camera views are merged into one seamless view and a fake image of the roof of a motorhome is dropped into the middle. It gives you the effect of a camera mounted about 75' up on a pole looking down at the motorhome. It shows everything around you and I even watched as a couple walked by the coach during a photo shoot and I could follow them in real-time on the monitor. This is something that I would really like for those close maneuvers. Following is a screen shot of the monitor.

[Saltydog44]

That system might have saved my buddy's slide cover....

[Hit_the_Rhod]

The reason cars are able to have "self park" features is that the designers are able to postulate that most parking spaces are pretty similar. They generally have an open area to the front (that may be blocked by a car or truck) an open area to the rear (that also may be occupied by a car, and on one side away from the starting point there generally is a clearly defined raised curb.

RV camping sites are NOT standardized, electric service panels come in all sizes and shapes, sewer hook ups and fresh water spigots are sometimes recessed, most times raised, and of different shapes and heights, trees and bushes do not come in standardized sizes (or density for that matter). There are raised areas of concrete for picnic tables, tire stops generally raised at the end of the spot, little wood or metal posts with site #'s on them, I can go on and on.

Getting a computer system to figure out what is an obstacle and what is a desired placement would be pretty difficult with all those variables. Now if it came with 4 (or more) stakes with RF (radio frequency) emitters that you manually place where you want the 4 corners of the coach to end up, you might be on to something!

For what it's worth, we have our own version of the "Total Vision Camera System". It's called my DW! And contrary to the engineers and software programmers who design things like self parking systems, both the DW and myself have a vested financial stake in not hitting something! That's the same reason I don't take backing up instructions from local yokels, or the guy in the coach next door (any longer anyway). An "oops, sorry about that" when you back into that tree limb that the neighbor wasn't looking for doesn't pay the deductible!

[Ready2Travel]

The real challenge would be to position the Motor home so that the sewer (and other hook ups) would reach and leaving enough room for the toad to park. In the car we test drove that had this feature you still had to operate the gas pedal and brakes so that would probably not be an issue.

[KKRONOWITZ]

I DOUBT YOU WILL SEE A SELF PARKING COACH SOON. WHAT I WOULD RATHER SEE IS A WIFI SYSTEM LIKE YOU SEE IN MOST NEW CARS WITH THE BLUE TOOTH SYSTEM ETC

[Saltydog44]

Originally Posted by KKRONOWITZ

I DOUBT YOU WILL SEE A SELF PARKING COACH SOON. WHAT I WOULD RATHER SEE IS A WIFI SYSTEM LIKE YOU SEE IN MOST NEW CARS WITH THE BLUE TOOTH SYSTEM ETC

Our Galaxy phone bluetooths for phone calls. Haven't tried for music etc. What other things would you like to see bluetoothed?

[757driver]

A self parking coach would be a waste of technology and money. Not that long ago I backed the DW into a camping spot that had 6" clearance from a leaning tree. Let's see a self parking coach do that without hitting something.

[EVsCoach]

Nope!!



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