Parallel Parking: Optimal Entry and Minimum Slot Dimensions

The problem of path planning for automated parking is usually presented as finding a collision-free path from initial to goal positions, where three out of four parking slot edges represent obstacles. We rethink the path planning problem for parallel parking by decomposing it into two independent parts. The topic of this paper is finding optimal parking slot entry positions. Path planning from initial to entry position is out of scope here. We show the relation between entry positions, parking slot dimensions, and the number of backward-forward direction changes. This information can be used as an input to optimize other parts of the automated parking process.