Simulation of auto valet parking using automatic pallets

Multi-story car parking systems were invented to increase the capacity of car park buildings. However, it is pointed out that the systems have problems such as accidents (in-park movement, theft), searching for parking spaces, boarding/deboarding at narrow designated places, and difficulties in using for beginners and elderly people. To solve these issues, the authors of this paper propose to introduce electric pallets that are called automatic pallets for transporting vehicles and realize automated valet parking that automates procedures for entrance and exit. With the introduction of automatic pallets, a wide variety of vehicles can fit into specific configurations. This facilitates automation. Also, the authors propose a system for improving the time efficiency of exit operations. The time efficiency of automatic pallet exiting is improved by automatically repeating movement to approach the exit side elevator after entering. However, it is unclear how good the time efficient exit operation in that system is. Also, the authors decided to simulate the proposed auto valet parking to find out what kind of problems there are. A simulation was performed on the entering reception and the exit operation. In addition, although random numbers are used in the simulation, two random number generation methods were used for comparison.