Next time you head to the airport in France there might be a robot waiting to pick up your car. French firm Stanley Robotics has been trialling its self-driving robot valets for a few years, and this week started its first full-time service at France’s Lyon-Saint-Exupéry airport, reports The Verge.
The system works like this: customers park their cars in special hangars where the vehicles are scanned to confirm their make and model. Then, one of Stanley’s robots — which are essentially self-driving forklifts named “Stan” — drives in, slides a platform underneath the vehicle, lifts it up, and carries it away and parks it.
Stanley Robotics say its system uses space much more efficiently than humans, fitting 50 percent more cars into the same area. This is thanks in part to the robots’ precision driving, but also because the system keeps track of when customers will return. This means the robots can park cars three or four deep, but then dig out the right vehicle ready for its owner’s return.
“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,” the co-founder and COO of Stanley Robotics, Stéphane Evanno, told Airport Technology in 2017. “[The robot uses] the same technology as self-driving cars; is able to scan its environment at any time, and react to anything that would be in the way.”
Stanley Robotics has held trials of its system in Düsseldorf and Paris’ Charles De Gaulle Airport, and is planning another test at London Gatwick this year