Master general parking skill via deep learning

Parking is one basic function of autonomous vehicles. However, parking still remains difficult to be implemented, since it requires to generate a relatively long-term series of actions to reach a certain objective under complicated constraints. One recently proposed method used deep neural networks(DNN) to learn the relationship between the actual parking trajectories and the corresponding steering actions, so as to find the best parking trajectory via direct recalling. However, this method can only handle a special vehicle whose dynamic parameters are well known. In this paper, we use transfer learning technique to further extend this direct trajectory planning method and master general parking skills. We aim to mimic how human drivers make parking by using a specially designed deep neural network. The first few layers of this DNN contain the general parking trajectory planning knowledge for all kinds of vehicles; while the last few layers of this DNN can be quickly tuned to adapt various kinds of vehicles. Numerical tests show that, combining transfer learning and direct trajectory planning solution, our new approach enables automated vehicles to convey the knowledge of trajectory planning from one vehicle to another with a few try-and-tests.