Imagine not having to find a parking spot at the airport when you’re already running late for your flight. That’s something that robots could help you out with and if happen to fly out of France’s Lyon-Saint-Exupéry airport, robots will certainly help you out with this. Stanley Robots is going to put its fleet of robot valets to use at this airport.
Those who want to use these robot valets will drop their cars in a dedicated garage-like box. That’s where one of the robot valets will pick it up from and deliver it to an available parking spot. On the owner’s return, the system will look at their flight information to find out when their car is supposed to be brought back to the box. So the car owner can simply get in and drive off without having to wait or search for the parking lot.
These robot valets look like rectangular boxes and they basically function as forklifts. They have sliding metal arms which lift up the car by its tires. The robots are said to be more efficient at parking than humans, the company claims that they can fit 50 percent more cars in the same area by parking them closer together.
Stanley Robotics will cover 500 parking spaces at this airport initially but it does plan to service 6,000 spots eventually. The company hasn’t said if this service will be offered at other airports across the globe, but it has held trials at Charles De Gaulle Airport in Paris and Düsseldorf International Airport in Germany.
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