The idea of robotic car parking at London Gatwick might make you sceptical, but the reality will surprise you
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Robots may not be taking over the world just yet, but they are certainly making an impact at London Gatwick - specifically with car parking.
In August, the airport, in partnership with Stanley Robotics, launched their new robotic car parking service.
When I was first told about this, I had visions of actual robots jumping into the front seat and doing donuts in the car park while you wait in departures for your flight to sunnier climbs.
But, of course, it is nothing like that. And I went along to get a full demonstration of how it works - and it’s quite impressive.
I am lucky enough to live near Gatwick so I have never had to use any of their parking facilities but if I did I would always worry about who is parking my car, who has my keys, where are my keys, I hope they haven’t lost my keys!
Find out more about parking at London Gatwick here.
And what about when I return; will it be ready to go? Will my car be easy to find?
But with this new service, you have no such worries.
As with normal parking, you book a slot online, then on your day of arrival, you simply drive into your allocated cabin, make sure you have everything, including your car keys, scan in your QR code and that is your job done. You can then either walk to the terminal or catch the free bus and forget about everything and enjoy your holiday.
The robot doesn’t pick up your car immediately, it allows time just in case you have forgotten something in the car.
But after five or ten minutes, the robot springs into action. It will go to you cabin and literally pick the car up.
Imagine a cool, futuristic forklift truck. The machine slides under the car and arms come out and go either side of all the wheels and lifts from there. The machine does not touch the chassis of the car as they do not want to damage the vehicles.
I imagine there are plenty of people who will be sceptical of this and worried their car could get damaged - but from what I saw in the demonstration, there should be no such worries.
Gatwick does say ‘the robots use advanced technology to safely move your car, constantly monitoring their surroundings to avoid obstacles. In the unlikely event of an issue, on-site teams are available to help’.
And after it takes the car out of the cabin, it finds a parking space and smoothly parks it in one of the 200 bays available. To be fair, it parked it better than a lot of drivers would on the evidence of what I have seen around Crawley recently.
When you return, the system knows if your flight has been delayed or not, either way, your car will be back in a cabin and pointing the right way for you to drive out.
It’s an incredible piece of kit and to see it in action is really impressive. There will be people who will continue to be sceptical about letting a robot park their car, but if I ever need to leave my car at the airport while I have on holiday - on the evidence I saw from the demonstration - I wouldn’t hesitate to let Stanley Robotics sort my car out.