To assist in driving and refueling automobiles, a few approaches have been developed to assist drivers in automating conventional vehicles (e.g., manually-driven automotive vehicles) to aid in performing relatively simple tasks and maneuvers. For example, some conventional automobiles have been designed to assist a human driver, whether manually or automatically, to perform parallel parking. While humans may perceive parallel parking as difficult, it is a relatively simple process that depends predominantly on the size of the space in which the automobile is to be parked. While functional, conventional self-parking mechanisms suffer a number of drawbacks. As one example, known self-parking mechanisms are generally limited to simple actions and are not well-suited to implement complex or any other intricate parking or driving action.
In the development of clean energy technologies and vehicles, automobiles have been developed to use alternative fuels other than petroleum-based fuel. For example, some electric vehicles have been developed to consume electricity as an “alternative fuel,” as defined, for example, the Energy Policy Act of 1992. Other vehicles have been developed to consume other types of alternative fuels, such as hydrogen. However, adoption of alternative fuel vehicles has lagged due to, at least in part, to relatively slow pace of constructing alternative fueling mechanisms and stations. The slowed rate of building alternative fuel stations may be due to the relatively high cost of resources (e.g., physical stations) to build such stations. Further, some charging stations may service electric vehicles that require multiple hours to fully recharge a battery. Thus, a scarcity in the availability to use alternative fuel stations might be expected, along with increased queues and difficulties in coordinating refueling with impromptu travel plans. In some cases, some conventional electric charging stations are networked to provide indications whether a station is in used. However, the logic used in the conventional electric charging stations is suboptimal to ensure an alternate fuel vehicle may refueled (e.g., recharged) in a timely and cost-effective manner without disrupting users' experiences. Other drawbacks are also present in a variety of known approaches to refueling of traditional alternate fuel vehicles.
Thus, what is needed is a solution for implementing autonomous control functions to facilitate parking and replenishment autonomous vehicles, without the limitations of conventional techniques.