If a technology by a company called Stanley Robotics takes off, you may never have to worry about airport parking lots again.
What the company has done is developed an outdoor automated robotic valet system and recently introduced it for the first time at the Lyon-Saint-Exupéry airport in France.
The valet system revolves around a unique robot dubbed ‘Stan’. The robot features a large bed that stretches out from the front, slides beneath a vehicle and lifts it off the ground. It then moves the vehicle into a free parking space.
To use the robotic valet system, users simply drive their vehicle into a dedicated cabin, make a parking reservation and leave their vehicle. Stan will then arrive and whisk away the car to an appropriate parking space. The system will park the car depending on how long it needs to be stored there. For example, if a user needs their car parked for a few months, Stan will take it to the corner of the parking lot and park other cars that will leave earlier much closer.
For added convenience, Stan will make your vehicle accessible shortly before your flight lands at the airport.
As part of the roll-out in Lyon, Stanley Robotics will have 500 parking spaces it can use and will deploy four robots, which will continually shuffle around vehicles. There are plans in place to expand the system in Lyon to 6,000 spaces.
In January, it was announced that London’s Gatwick airport would soon start experimenting with the same parking system.
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