ISO 16787:2017 covers the assisted parking system (APS) for light-duty vehicles, e.g. passenger cars, pick-up trucks, light vans and sport utility vehicles (motorcycles excluded) equipped with such APS. This document establishes minimum functionality requirements that the driver can expect of the system, such as the detection of suitable parking spaces, calculation of trajectories and lateral control of the vehicle. Information on the presence of relevant obstacles in the driving path of the vehicle can also be included in the functionality of such systems. This document also sets minimum requirements for failure indication as well as performance test procedures. It includes rules for the general information strategy, but does not restrict the kind of information or display system.

APS is intended to provide automated parking assistance functionality to the driver. The APS searches the environment adjacent to the vehicle for suitable parking areas between other parked vehicles or markings on the road such as painted lines, evaluates the required information to calculate parking trajectories and sends steering commands to an electronic interface of the steering system for lateral control of the vehicle during the parking manoeuvre.

The basic APS function is to assist the driver with lateral control of the vehicle during parking manoeuvres. As an optional extension, APS can also offer limited longitudinal control of the vehicle movement, e.g. braking assistance while manoeuvring into the parking slot.

ISO 16787:2017 contains requirements for the lateral control capability of APS. It does not address longitudinal control.

During the parking manoeuvre, the driver can take over the control of the vehicle movement at any time and is also fully responsible for the parking manoeuvre.

APS uses object-detection devices for detection and ranging in order to search the environment for suitable parking areas. Such devices can be sensors with distance information or vision-based systems. In addition, sensors or counters, as well as relevant data available on the vehicle network (e.g. CAN), may be used to calculate the position of the vehicle relative to the parking area.

APS is an extension of systems which inform the driver about obstacles in parking manoeuvres (e.g. ISO 17386 and ISO 22840).

ISO 16787:2017 does not include assisted parking systems, reversing aids and obstacle-detection devices for use on heavy commercial vehicles or on vehicles with trailers.