Park by Robot at London Gatwick Airport

197

aagotterer about 4 hours ago 131 commentsRead Article on aerospaceglobalnews.com

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Discussion (131 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

pontus•about 3 hours ago

So I'll have to park my car in a garage first, then take a bus to the terminal just so that a robot can move my car from the place where I parked it to a different place? I was hoping it'd be something where I'd pull up to the curb, grab my bags and head in while the robot parked the car for me but apparently I'll still have to take a bus to the terminal?

simonklee•about 3 hours ago

Exactly, i think this product is solving an airport problem and not a user problem. Whenever i park at an airport i always look for the shortest distance to terminal / price, then chose an option that lands within an acceptable range. Unless i'm way for very long shuttle-bus isn't really on the table.

telesilla•about 1 hour ago

Sometimes airport parking is insanely expensive (cough Schipol), so I'll park further away anyway or park somewhere I can get the train. If this helped lower costs I'd be fine with this but probably they'd keep the high price anyway.

myegorov•19 minutes ago

Fun fact: you can get to/from Schiphol by bike.

amelius•about 3 hours ago

It's still an impressive engineering feat, and (probably, given recent AI advances) an incredible time to market. I wonder when they started working on this, how big their company is, how much training data they put into it, etc.

What is the name of the company that built this?

wildzzz•about 1 hour ago

It's probably got some AI but not the GPU gobbling kind. This is old school robotics using control loops and old AI algorithms. Sensors decide if you've parked correctly in the garage. Robot is dispatched via a queue once you've closed the door. Cameras and sensors guide the dolly into place. Robot follows predetermined route to the parking spot and uses sensors to detect obstructions (people, debris, other robots parking cars). Maybe there's lidar on board. Cameras and encoders guide the car perfectly into the designated spot. Robot whisks off to go charge or grab another car from the queue. It's effectively the same level of intelligence as a Roomba with the mechanics of an electric forklift. It's still cool but the fundamentals were developed 40+ years ago, we've just managed to shrink a lot of the tech down in size and power since then.

semiquaver•about 2 hours ago

  > (probably, given recent AI advances) an incredible time to market

There’s nothing whatsoever to indicate that this has anything at all to do with LLMs.

domh•about 2 hours ago

It says Stanley Robotics in the article: https://www.stanley-robotics.com/

Edit: seems like they got bought out in 2024 by HL Robotics: https://en.hlrobotics.co.kr/

SoftTalker•about 2 hours ago

I parked in a robotic parking garage in Denmark ten years ago. This isn't really new tech, though the implementation sounds a bit different.

mschuster91•about 2 hours ago

> how much training data they put into it

This kind of stuff has been the norm literally for decades in any major harbor. No AI BS needed.

wat10000•about 2 hours ago

Isn't this just automated valet parking? Valet parking allows more efficient use of space, which makes it cheaper in places where space is at a premium. Automating it would change that tradeoff in a way that benefits the customer.

bravoetch•about 2 hours ago

It's missing the value-add of valet parking - being able to pull up at the front door and walk away from your car. Without that, this is not valet anything. You still park then shuttle to the airport so there's zero benefit to the end user.

varispeed•about 2 hours ago

I look for most spacious parking place with wide approach lanes, then shortest distance. Some car parks at the airports are just ridiculous. So narrow you can't exit the car.

kkrkgbbsvjdlzn•26 minutes ago

I you have an extreme size SUV, yes, it should be hard to park. It’s by design.

iamben•29 minutes ago

I think this is solving the 'airport parking' problem my dad has. He drives to the airport, parks a mile or so away in some field and the company that owns the field drops him off at the terminal. He can leave his car there for the week.

This feels like a clever solution to have some spaces closer to the airport and many spaces further away.

Reason077•35 minutes ago

Yes, it doesn't make a lot of sense if you can't pull up close to the terminal and leave your car there for the robot to park. But I assume this is just a prototype/trial of the robot tech with a view to expanding it in the future. Presumably they didn't want the risk of broken down (or stuck/confused) parking robots clogging up the busy airport drop off area.

clickety_clack•about 1 hour ago

Implementation is everything. If there’s enough capacity to drive up and drop your car off without queueing, and your car is ready to go as you leave the terminal then it sounds great. If there’s a half hour wait to get into the drop off zone, and another half hour wait after picking up your bags, and a half hour walk to the pickup/dropoff area then I’d prefer a 30 min shuttle.

ghm2199•21 minutes ago

Not a problem for me, :) I always take a shuttle or an Uber to the airport from where I parked, which is 10-15 mins away, because parking at the airport(JFK, LaGuardia, Newark at least) is stupid expensive

The article says:

> The facility is within walking distance of the South Terminal, although a free shuttle bus is also available.

have_faith•about 3 hours ago

Article says one of the terminals is within walking distance

IshKebab•about 2 hours ago

Anything is within walking distance if you're willing to walk...

Anyway here's where it is:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/YZKPXp7LSjc5jPot5

Turn on satellite view and you can see it is on the edge of the long stay parking. I dunno if you're realistically going to save a lot of time unless your parking space is right at the back of the long stay car park. Worth it if it's free! I assume it's overpriced though.

kkotak•about 2 hours ago

From the map. It looks like the train is closer to the terminal :)

mattlutze•about 2 hours ago

Think of it as picking the parking garage or lot you like, but skipping the hunt for an open spot.

As these things go, if the service provider is able to make step one work and the airport continues the partnership, an eventual step would indeed be coming closer to or at the terminal, and the robot scooters (sounds a little like scaled-up warehouse robots) would move the car to storage.

the__alchemist•about 2 hours ago

I will give you a reason why this might be useful. Not at Gatwick. (I always took the train when I lived in that area and usually ended up at Heathrow or Stanstead anyway). But at Raleigh NC for example, you have to go up 5 levels to find a spot, (I have never seen an open spot on levels 1-4) and spend about 10 minutes or more finding a spot after that, then walking from your spot to the elevator, then back out. Or sometimes the lot is filled up, and you have to drive to a lot far away, then spend even longer finding a spot that will be at the far end of the lot, then walking a good distance to the bus terminal.

That's if you know the system, and are aware that you won't find spots on the lower levels, and that the "x spots open" indicators are lying. If you're new, you can spend 30+ minutes on a goose chase, miss your flight etc.

This solves that problem; not the bus one. (If the drop-off location is easy to access; if not, then it's pointless)

Reason077•18 minutes ago

> "you won't find spots on the lower levels, ... the "x spots open" indicators are lying"

A simpler and cheaper solution would be to fix those availability signs. Surely this is not a problem that a few cameras and some smart software couldn't solve.

OptionOfT•5 minutes ago

This is interesting for the point of saving space. You need a lot less space between cars and can easily park multiple rows without having to leave egress space. All you then need to do is move 3 other cars.

Give a buffer that should be feasible.

jalada•32 minutes ago

Simultaneously - https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/water-supply...

kylehotchkiss•31 minutes ago

It’s exciting to invest in the future and not exciting to invest in infrastructure

joe463369•22 minutes ago

Neither VINCI Airports nor Stanley Robotics are responsible for the water infrastructure in South East England.

pkulak•about 2 hours ago

I guess we can add this to the ever-growing list of extremely expensive, complicated, inefficient and convoluted solutions to problems that end with the final specification: "but it can't be a train".

fdsdffds•3 minutes ago

Yes, let's depend on a train for my time-sensitive journey with lots of awkward luggage.

Do you people even ride trains? Are you OK with the 50/50 odds of gettings home on time?

ChrisMarshallNY•about 1 hour ago

My company used to cover a car service for us (limo), my door to the terminal.

When they set up the AirTrain, I stopped using the car service. It took longer, but I have always had a soft spot for mass transit, and I kind of got a kick out of boarding a train in Huntington, NY, and leaving the train, in Shinagawa.

dyauspitr•about 1 hour ago

Yeah because I want to haul all my luggage on a train journey when I go to the airport. I’ll take a train to a lot of places but the airport is not one of them.

rpadovani•about 1 hour ago

My company pays for taxi from my door to the airport and I still take the train, unless I am leaving before dawn.

There is both a rational environment choice in that, and a nice feeling of being part of a humming crowd

dyauspitr•about 1 hour ago

I drive an EV powered by my own solar panels. I’ve done my part and frankly don’t much like public transport unless I’m specifically looking to be in the hubbub which is mostly on the weekends when I’m socializing.

scratcheee•about 1 hour ago

Easier to haul my luggage on a train designed for that purpose than take a car and spend longer parking it than the entire train journey. I live 10 minutes from Gatwick, have never driven there, and don’t understand why anyone would want to if there’s any alternative.

Taxis I understand.

louthy•33 minutes ago

Presumably, you've never taken the Heathrow Express? That is a train journey that is always better than a car. The Gatwick Express, not so much.

longsangstan•about 1 hour ago

I am quite surprised by the amount of negative comments here. My immediate reaction after watching the video is that this is pretty cool and I want to try it, even though I expect issues given that it is the first service of this kind in London.

Tade0•31 minutes ago

Personally I wonder why didn't they put several Pater Noster parking machines instead.

Systems with eight slots have decent throughout, the same density as cars parked side-by-side and bumper-to-bumper - even including the space needed to roll out - and are mechanically simple compared to just about anything else in this space.

oasisbob•11 minutes ago

Just in case anyone else is wondering, that article mentions that you get to keep your keys no less than eight times, while being light on all other details.

I miss publications with skilled human editors.

Onavo•4 minutes ago

Can it handle EVs safely? The bottom battery often causes...issues if you don't have a lifting puck to spread the weight.

ajay-b•about 2 hours ago

"Unlike traditional valet parking, passengers retain possession of their keys throughout their trip."

"If passengers accidentally leave an essential item in the vehicle after drop-off, on-site staff will be available to retrieve emergency items."

But.. how would they get that emergency item if they don't have the keys?

beejiu•about 2 hours ago

You give them the keys, then they go to the site to collect your item.

bravoetch•about 2 hours ago

They can turn your alarm off while they're fetching your pills.

mbreese•about 2 hours ago

I can remote lock/unlock my car from an app, so I’m guessing this is what they are thinking about.

cortesoft•about 2 hours ago

First thing I thought, too. Seems like mutually exclusive features.

djhworld•about 3 hours ago

I always wonder with solutions like these how stuff like alarm systems on the car cope with the car being lifted, the vibrations encountered as its being towed.

Unless they tell you to switch the alarm system off I guess.

0x3f•about 3 hours ago

I don't think car alarms detect these kinds of vibrations. It's specifically tilt and more impactful stuff. Certainly, the alarm is never going off when I get my car back via the lifts that I've used. It's probably too smooth.

walrus01•about 2 hours ago

Car alarms go off all the time on ferries from cars that really don't like being locked and moved.

kvirani•about 1 hour ago

Yes I see this all the time on BC ferries. Usually an Audi or similar

0x3f•about 2 hours ago

Ferries tilt and jolt in a way that predictable-path car lifts don't.

papercrane•about 3 hours ago

The problem will be aftermarket car alarms. There used to be a car that parked on the street near my apartment that would go off ever time a bus went by it.

egeozcan•33 minutes ago

There's even a somewhat famous song about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z-8vy6sPQQ

eliseumds•about 1 hour ago

Some OEM systems are sensitive too. My mother has a Hyundai that triggers the alarm whenever a heavy truck drives by.

PaulRobinson•about 3 hours ago

As a general rule, you should take the train to Gatwick if you can, but this is reasonably priced and next time I'm flying from Gatwick I'll probably drive and do this - the train route for me is a bit fiddly, and the worst bit of any London airport for a local is long-stay parking. I'm much closer to Heathrow but the flights from LGW are so much cheaper, it more than covers two weeks of parking at this price.

myself248•36 minutes ago

I wonder how many people will forget to roll up their windows because they parked in a garage, then the robot leaves the car outside for a week, then the owner comes back to find the car back in the garage but inexplicably soggy and full of mold.

Does the process have a check for forgotten windows?

mjfisher•34 minutes ago

In the UK, pretty much zero. Nobody ever leaves their windows down when they leave their car.

dybber•35 minutes ago

Is parking with the windows open a normal thing to do in the UK?

myself248•33 minutes ago

In a garage?

nfbdhdfbf•27 minutes ago

You didn’t answer the question Is that a thing people do in the UK? I’ve never heard of anybody doing that. I’m not sure why you would do it.

ThrowawayTestr•26 minutes ago

What difference does that make?

lrae•23 minutes ago

> Maximum weight: 2.6 tonnes

Wonder what the actual limit is and what happens when you're above it (and the other max. dimensions)? Couple of EVs out there that are heavier than 2.6 tonnes now. (Volvo EX90, Mercedes EQS, BMW iX, Ioniq 9, Rivians (not yet in the UK), ... and many more right around that weight.)

Is it getting measured in the cabin and declines you?

jankcorn•25 minutes ago

This seems little different from the Automated Parking Systems that I saw in widespread use in Japan from the 1980's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system

(The main difference being 3D in Japan and 2D at Gatwick)

ukrulez•11 minutes ago

This problem has already been solved, better. 100 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Car_elevator

walthamstow•about 3 hours ago

It's quite reasonably priced too (for airport parking), about £80 a week booking for September today. I paid that for short stay parking at Stansted earlier this summer.

tehwebguy•about 3 hours ago

Wow, who is subsidizing it?

throw2ih020•about 3 hours ago

London Gatwick is outside of London, so I assume land costs are low enough that a multi-story car park isn't too expensive.

7952•about 2 hours ago

Most of the long term parking is surface rather than multi storey.

0x3f•about 3 hours ago

Most 'London' airports are outside of London and they still charge a ton for parking. Captive audience. This one is unusually cheap, even for Gatwick.

sixQuarks•about 3 hours ago

That is pretty good pricing. I’m surprised. I wonder if this is just introductory pricing. It seems like there’s not much throughput for something like this. I can’t see how this could handle a constant stream of people wanting to park their cars.

michaelt•about 2 hours ago

> It seems like there’s not much throughput for something like this. I can’t see how this could handle a constant stream of people wanting to park their cars.

Assume your car park is a grid of cars, 20 cars wide and 20 cars long, i.e. 400 parking spaces.

You make the entire first row drop-off/pick up points. With 20 pick up/drop off points you can have a lot of people dropping off or picking up at the same time. And you know pretty well when people will be picking up their cars, as you know their flight arrival details.

Assume your average airport parking customer parks for 5 days, that's 80 arrivals and 80 departures per day. Each of your 20 pick-up/drop-off points only needs to handle 4 pick-ups and 4 drop-offs per day. To me that sounds feasible.

sixQuarks•about 1 hour ago

Yeah, in theory, but this assumes a linear demand curve, whereas there may be periods where lots of people come to park at the same time.

Most airport parking lots have thousands of spots so you’d need a lot

djhworld•about 1 hour ago

It's not quite clear from the video but it looks to me like you park up in the garage, and there's a garage door on the other side. So as you 'check in', I guess the 'human' side you drove in on, that door closes, and then the other side opens for the robots to collect the car which I'm guessing is also where the car storage is.

Sort of feels like those videos you see of high tech warehouses where the human workers really only operate on the outskirts of the building, and everything central is completely automated (picking, sorting, storing, inventory etc)

matthewpick•about 2 hours ago

You could pack the cars so close together that no one could get into them. Could be seen as a bit of a theft deterrent, although I’m sure the car park itself is pretty secure.

dgellow•42 minutes ago

I never thought about this, can you steal cars by lifting them like that in the air? Not that I think that will happen, but it would be really funny to hack such a robot and just collect cars around

OptionOfT•7 minutes ago

Yes. If you can get under it.

jameshart•35 minutes ago

This technique is frequently used by towing companies impounding cars and reposession agents collecting cars for loan defaults - absolutely you can pick up and take a car away with the right hardware.

Just for most people a stolen locked car isn’t really of much uses.

kkrkgbbsvjdlzn•18 minutes ago

Already invented protection for this. https://youtube.com/watch?v=n1Ug4I89c98

lucb1e•about 1 hour ago

15 quid that it won't work without installing an app that could have been a website or a card swipe terminal

rwmj•about 2 hours ago

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jul/26/water-supply...

As long as you don't want to use the toilet.

flkiwi•about 2 hours ago

It's the perfect juxtaposition of stories.

ukrulez•7 minutes ago

More fun to spend millions on AI than fixing literal shit.

gib444•32 minutes ago

Seems it's becoming all too frequent in Kent and Sussex

smnscu•about 3 hours ago

I'd be curious how it handles someone parking poorly in that bay e.g. diagonally. Presumably those lines serve as a parking guide and the door won't close unless you park correctly.

throw2ih020•about 3 hours ago

The local car wash has lights that help you park the car pretty precisely under the wash robot. No rails or anything, you park right underneath the robot and it moves around and over the car. The robot doesn't start until you are in position.

alt227•about 3 hours ago

IMO this would be a terrible idea to let the robots park cars in the same car park as humans. They most likely have a dedicated car park for this where ever car is parked by a robot.

The article says:

"A Stanley Robotics autonomous parking robot then slides underneath the vehicle, lifts it by its tyres and transports it to a secure storage area."

Which seems to suggest this.

wildzzz•about 3 hours ago

It sounds like the actual lot will be robots only as it mentions parking cars closer together to maximize capacity.

antihero•about 3 hours ago

I think the OP was talking about humans parking weirdly in the garage the robot picks them up from, not the car park itself—the car park itself is robot only (so they can jam cars together).

cespare•about 3 hours ago

The parent is wondering about parking in the bay, before the robot picks it up.

Elhana•about 3 hours ago

Robot = some 3rd world country guy driving in remotely

artisinal•about 2 hours ago

Will probably not be long until a YouTuber tries to hide in their car while it gets picked up. Would make for a fun video.

Tom Scott perhaps? Though he will likely get full access to the system.

simonbarker87•about 1 hour ago

Of all the airports to do it at in the UK this is probably the one that doesn’t need it. Parking at Gatwick is a breeze, lots of options close and far from the airport and quite reasonably priced. Now Luton, that’s another story.

flipbrad•about 3 hours ago

I wonder what the failure mode for something like this is (e.g. in bad weather, after a power cut, a car catches fire, etc). Nobody in the country with keys, cars parked so close together you probably couldn't get in anyway... could be interesting!

mschuster91•about 2 hours ago

> a car catches fire

That's a solved problem, drench the car in copious amounts of water and flush all oxygen with high pressure CO2 tanks.

SoftTalker•about 2 hours ago

BEV thermal runaway fires are certainly not a solved problem. I'm not sure they are as common as some critics suggest, but they are difficult when they happen.

mschuster91•about 1 hour ago

> I'm not sure they are as common as some critics suggest, but they are difficult when they happen.

Indeed, and the usual solution that firefighters choose is to dump copious amounts of water onto the burning vehicle and then drown the carcass into even more water. The biggest issue is that it takes time for the firefighters to arrive - about 10 minutes in Germany by law - and so a fire has quite the time to progress.

embedding-shape•about 3 hours ago

> The service must be booked in advance. Same-day drive-up parking is not available.

Interesting, I wonder if this is just a "Like to be able to see availability and cross-reference data to set individual pricing" or if it's because of a technical limitation, and if so, what could that possibly be?

dlopes7•about 2 hours ago

Well if there are 100 cars waiting in line for the little garage to be available it defeats the purpose

jauntywundrkind•38 minutes ago

A sci-fi dream i have is that cars and their engines decouple. That you just own a shell, an egg, and the town owns all the engines. (This dream also includes warehouses and delivery robots of many sizes owned by the town too).

In a funny way, this sort of does that. Sure your car still has an engine but this very much is the car-shell tractor, in practice. This is really neat to see.

I wish them luck. I hope it is reliable enough! It looks pretty straightforwards in how it picks up wheels, which is neat.

inigyou•about 2 hours ago

There are systems where you park your car on a moving platform and the whole platform slots into an underground warehouse. That seems simpler and safer.

dybber•29 minutes ago

I don’t think they’re mechanically simpler. Those kinds of underground garages probably require a lot of maintenance to keep running.

beardyw•about 3 hours ago

I remember parking in central London where you left your car in a single space inside a building and it would whisk it up onto some unseen location. I think that was under human control but maybe it will make a comeback with automation.

krisoft•about 2 hours ago

There are some horror stories when those kind of systems break down.

For example this one is about a van which got stuck in one for two years: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx207jwknp5o

Or there was one in Sweden which trapped cars for 2 months: https://www.mitti.se/nyheter/fnurret-pa-psnurran--m-vill-se-... (sorry, could only find a swedish source)

It is because these kind of systems are complicated bespoke automation. When it breaks down it costs a fortune to fix it. And what can happen is that different parties (operators vs manufacture vs maintainer) gets into a contract dispute to see who is liable to pay to get it fixed. Which as you can guess can take years to play out. Meanwhile your vehicle is stuck and nobody who could is interested in spending a penny on getting it out.

In contrast to that this project is better in two ways. There are multiple robots. (or at least there really should be) So if one breaks down the other robots can still retrieve cars (albeit of course with reduced throughput). And because the storage is just a flat parking lot if all the robots give up the ghost at the same time humans can drive out the cars from the edges of the storage rows.

0x3f•about 3 hours ago

Where was this? I've only seen it in London at very high end residential places. Even then it's rare. Most privately-owned public car parks in London are dilapidated and full of thieves, but still command premium pricing. It would surprise me if one bothered to build the infra for this.

tonyedgecombe•37 minutes ago

I remember using one in Fleet Street in the eighties.

reenorap•about 2 hours ago

The cookie screen for this web site is the most deceitful I’ve come across in a long time. How do I report this?

ryanmcbride•about 3 hours ago

Wow finally something capable of parking cars! I'm sure it'll be so much better and cheaper than just paying valets to do it too!

Finnucane•about 1 hour ago

So robots: yes. Water: no.

trebligdivad•about 3 hours ago

I wonder what their secure parking area looks like.

krisoft•about 3 hours ago

A fenced off flat parking lot with a few cameras here and there. Not sure what you expect.

trebligdivad•about 2 hours ago

Well that's why I ask - a lot of 'secure' airport parking suffers from people stealing from it.

jq-r•about 2 hours ago

Honest question, what there is to steal from a car what was left on the parking lot? Especially on an airport where I assume everyone flies off with their luggage and leave nothing or nothing of value behind.

helsinkiandrew•about 3 hours ago

You can see it on Google maps: https://maps.app.goo.gl/MQjWHbbc5jeUryGU7?g_st=ic

trebligdivad•about 2 hours ago

So is it that normal looking parking area or is that a multi storey behind the places they show in the video?

stronglikedan•about 3 hours ago

If you knew what it looked like, it wouldn't be as secure!

pj_mukh•about 2 hours ago

Great, now let's (gradually) get rid of all surface parking lots and build hyper-optimized multi-floor parking setups not made for human driving. A sort of Ocado Grocery Warehouse [1] for cars.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ssZ_8cqfBlE

As always, yes I know this already exists in Japan.

blondie9x•about 1 hour ago

This is so unnecessary. Just make better transit options and make it more affordable for people to go to airport.

varispeed•about 2 hours ago

I heard horror stories, where "secure storage area" was actually a field without any security. Not saying this is the case here, but one must be mad to give a car like that without knowing exact location it is going.

It's one of the things where I can't see what is there robot's role here.

djhworld•about 1 hour ago

I doubt the robots have sufficient enough traction/mobility to navigate on any surface that isn't reasonably smooth like tarmac. Also I'd wager the car park the robots go to isn't that far away from the drop off location, most likely on the same land owned by the airport.

txomon•about 3 hours ago

Am I the only one bothered because the license plate masking they have used is so bad that you can see the License plate whole several times?