Patent ID: 7119715

Claim:
A parking lot attendant robot system including a robot placed in a parking lot for giving guidance to a motorist who wishes to park an vehicle in a prescribed parking space defined within the parking lot, comprising: a robot ( 1 ) provided with traveling means ( 1 b , 14 b ) for moving about at least within the parking lot; a control unit ( 13 ) for controlling various actions of the robot; image capturing means ( 11 , 12 ) for capturing at least an image of the vehicle ( 2 ) that is desired to be guided to the parking space ( 31 ) and identifying the position of the vehicle relative to the parking space; parking path computing means ( 13 ) for computing a parking path which the vehicle should follow for the vehicle to be properly parked in the parking space according to the position of the vehicle identified by the image capturing means; a vehicle information sensor ( 21 – 24 ) for detecting vehicle information including a steering angle; vehicle information transmitting means ( 25 ) for transmitting the vehicle information to the control unit; guidance information generating means ( 13 ) for generating a guidance information including a target steering angle for the vehicle according to the vehicle information and the parking path computed by the parking path computing means; and guidance information transmitting means ( 15 , 14 a ; 18 , 25 , 27 ) for transmitting the guidance information from the control unit to the vehicle or a motorist driving the vehicle.