It is often difficult to find a suitable parking spot in a town or city with high traffic density. Not to mention the fact that once you finally find a place the parking manoeuvre may be quite difficult if the available space is tight.
The Lancia Delta therefore comes with an innovative parking aid system (developed with CRF)  that tells drivers whether a parking space is big enough and helps them carry out the actual parking manoeuvre. As an initial stage, the system measures the length of the free space and indicates whether it is large enough for your car. This system then automatically as does the vehicle as it reverses, leaving the driver only with the task of adjusting speed by means of accelerator and brake.
The vehicle is therefore parallel to the park in a single manoeuvre, optimising parking in the free available space in order to limit the number of subsequent vehicle alignment manoeuvres by the driver. The driver naturally has full control over the entire operation by means of the pedals and can deactivate the system by operating the steering wheel or disengaging reverse or alternatively by pressing the dedicated button.
In detail, the heart of the system is a radar sensor installed on the right side of the vehicle inside the front bumper. The radar beam is sent into the space to the right and the echoes are picked up by the sensor, which reconstructs a map of the area between the parked cars, ‘sees' free spaces and identifies any other obstacles. In parallel, the system is able to measure the length of the free areas on the basis of information obtained by measuring the speed of the wheels.
The driver is informed of the presence of a suitable parking space when the measured length is compatible with the size of the vehicle (the space must be at least 5.30 metres): an acoustic signal indicates that a suitable space has been detected and a display indicates whether the parking manoeuvre may be carried out in one or more stages.
If the driver considers that the parking area identified is suitable and engages reverse, the system is able to control side movements of the vehicle by means of the electric steering system, allowing the driver to take his hands of the steering wheel and control vehicle motion exclusively using the accelerator and brake pedals: During this stage, the maximum permitted speed is 7 km/h and all the driver needs to do, in order to stop the system working, is to resume control of the steering wheel.