Travelers won’t have to worry about parking their cars at airports as soon robots valets might solve this problem and park their cars for them.
A French firm named Stanley Robotics has developed an autonomous valet robot called Stan to help travelers not face the hassle of parking cars by taking their cars the moment they arrive at the airport and delivering it back as soon as they land back.
Running on electricity, Stan makes uses of sensors to analyze each vehicle’s shape and size. It then carefully lifts the car up a few inches above the ground and transports it to an available space in the parking lot, explained Digital Trends.
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Through a smartphone app, the person can reserve a space ahead of time. The person will be directed to leave their car in a designated garage after which Stan comes into action. The traveler can also notify Stan of their return time so that their car will be ready to drive away as soon as the person shows up.
Also, to be efficient and ensure that nobody is kept waiting for their turns, numerous Stans can be deployed at a single parking lot. Stan is set for a three-month-long trial this August at UK’s Gatwick Airport.
“We call it a valet parking robot because people just need to drop off their car at the entrance of the car park and then they can basically leave and catch a flight,” Stéphane Evanno, co-founder and COO of Stanley Robotics, told Airport Technology. “But it’s doing more than just valet parking — it’s a machine that autonomously detects a vehicle, slides under it, lifts it gently by the wheels, and moves it to a storage area.”
Also, this technology can help free up parking space because Stan can place cars closer together as their doors always stay shut. In the tests, the 170 parking spaces will be transformed into 270 robo-valet spots, as per Futurism.