Robot Valet Parking at Gatwick and ABB's AMRs

Gatwick's Stanley Robotics valets lift cars by their tyres and park them. From 1958 Helsinki lots to stacked garages, and how ABB's Flexley Mover AMRs compare.

INDUSTRIAL ROBOTICS

Chat With Robot

9/26/20261 min read

In 1958, drivers in central Helsinki left their cars on an open lot beside the main post office and walked the rest of the way. Parking has always meant finding a gap, squeezing in and later hunting for the car again. At big airports it also means a long walk with luggage.

Black and white photo of cars parked on an open square with pedestrians in Helsinki

Cars parked by the main post office in Helsinki, 1958. Photo: E. Friman / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Stacked mechanical garages like this one in Shenzhen lift cars onto platforms to save ground space. Automated valet parking, where cars drive themselves to a bay inside a garage, was demonstrated at the IAA motor show in Munich in 2021.

Steel frame parking tower holding cars on several levels beside a street

A stacked mechanical car park in Shenzhen, China. Photo: Popolon / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

London Gatwick is now the first UK airport with robotic parking, run with the French company Stanley Robotics, and this month British news crews filmed it parking travellers' cars. Drivers leave the car in a cabin near the South Terminal and keep their keys. A robot slides underneath, lifts the car by its tyres and parks it to within centimetres. Using the return flight details, the system has the car waiting in a cabin when its owner lands. It takes about 95% of cars, up to 2.6 tonnes.

Dark green car driving itself inside a parking garage marked for automated valet parking

An automated valet parking demonstration at the IAA motor show in Munich, 2021. Photo: Matti Blume / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

ABB does not make parking robots, but it makes mobile robots that slide under heavy loads, lift them and carry them away. The Flexley Mover P604 does this in factories and finds its way with Visual SLAM, a camera-based map of its surroundings.

Low white ABB Flexley Mover robot with a grey lifting top between wooden crates

An ABB Flexley Mover P604 with its lift top among pallet crates. Photo: ABB

On 20 September ABB described a flexible plan for car plants in which robot cells replace the long fixed line and autonomous mobile robots carry parts and welded assemblies between them. Its reference project builds battery trays in Europe. ABB arms already work in car final assembly.

Low white ABB mobile robot carrying stacked blue crates across a factory floor

An ABB Flexley Mover P603 carrying crates across a factory. Photo: ABB

Robot car parks can pack cars closer together than human drivers can, which frees up land. My guess is that they will also shuffle electric cars to chargers overnight. Most travellers will only care that the car is back in the cabin when the plane lands.

White ABB industrial robot beside a car body shell on a yellow carrier

An ABB robot next to a car body in a final assembly cell. Photo: ABB

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