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Parking Attendant 2.0

Posted by Zonk on Tue Feb 06, 2007 05:38 AM
from the i-wonder-what-an-suv-falling-six-stories-sounds-like dept.
Robotics Technology
theodp writes "Would you trust a robot to park your car? That's the question facing New Yorkers as the city's first robotic parking garage opens in Chinatown. With new software and enough laser and radar sensors to make Fort Knox jealous, it's believed that the new facility — which can squeeze 67 cars in space that would otherwise hold only 24 — will not suffer the kind of glitches that caused the nation's first robotic garage in nearby NJ to drop and trap cars."
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  • The FIRST robotic garage in NJ... (Score:5, Informative)

    by ArsenneLupin (766289) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @05:41AM (#17902320)
    ... did not trap cars due to technical malfunctions, but rather due to a contractual dispute.

  • Get me one! (Score:4, Funny)

    by lemmen (48986) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @05:42AM (#17902324) Homepage
    Get me one so my wife can finally park her car normally!
  • Reminds me of the scences from I, Robot that showed the immense automated car storage system. I'm looking forward to Parting Attendant 3.0.

    • Re:I, Robot (Score:5, Funny)

      by Hanners1979 (959741) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @07:00AM (#17902722) Homepage
      I'm looking forward to Parting Attendant 3.0.

      A hairdressing robot?

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by hey! (33014)

      Reminds me of the scences from I, Robot that showed the immense automated car storage system.

      It's kind of like when you see a Edwardian engraving depicting life a hundred years in the future. They'll show advances that haven't happened yet (e.g. everybody flying around in their own personal dirigibles), but miss other ones. I think in a world with robotics so advanced, it is unlikely that anybody will drive -- or be allowed to drive -- a personal automobile, except at the track. It's like the dawn of

  • Not Really New (Score:5, Informative)

    by Garrett Fox (970174) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @05:44AM (#17902356) Homepage
    This isn't entirely a new idea. Tokyo already has space-efficient parking garages that stack cars using turntables and elevators. I think the images atop this link [techeblog.com] are fake, but the video appears real and this [blogspot.com] appears similar to what I saw from outside.

    • Re:Not Really New (Score:5, Informative)

      by Corporate Troll (537873) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @06:49AM (#17902690) Homepage Journal

      The picture you think is fake is an actual "garage" at VW. It's not something where you park your car, but it's where new cars are stored awaiting the customers. (You had a hint in the text, plus all cars in the picture are clearly VWs) It's in "Autostad" near Wolfsburg. [volkswagen.co.uk]

      It saves a bit space and is a nice to show off ;-)

    • Those pictures are very real, just the description is wrong:
      its in germany, not japan
      And its no garage, its a car "storage tower" near a vw plant, where people can "dial" their car, and it gets fetched to them.
    • Tokyo already has space-efficient parking garages that stack cars using turntables[...]

      Yeah, but after the Giant Discjockey Incident people are getting weary of all the scratching.

      *ba-dum pshh*

      Thank you, I'll be here all week. Tip your waitress.
    • Yep. I live in Japan right now, and these parking garages are everywhere. I pass about 3 on the walk to work each day, and I don't even live in a major metropolitan area.

      • Re:Not Really New (Score:4, Informative)

        by jrumney (197329) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @06:35AM (#17902622) Homepage
        I remember using one in Nagoya in 1989. They are not new technology at all.
          • Its not a case of being backward, more a tradeoff between the cost of installing and maintaining a complex system vs property prices for the land required for a simpler conventional carpark. With skyrocketing property prices around the world in the last few years, its not surprising that we're starting to see solutions that Japan adopted at the peak of its property bubble in the 1980's.

  • Great idea! (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CaptainZapp (182233) * on Tuesday February 06 2007, @05:48AM (#17902384) Homepage
    They tried such a scheme (alas not quite as sofisticated) in the city of Zurich, Switzerland [wikipedia.org] a few years ago. You parked your car in a lift thingie, left it, acknowledged a sort of EULA in which you certified that you didn't leave life animals in your car and presto! Your car was parked fully automagically.

    The parking worked like a charm too. What didn't quite work was the retrieval of your car (which should happen within 120 seconds according to the specs). The city, as the owner of the garage, had to shell out a few nights in a nice hotel until the less lucky owners cars could be retrieved by manual intervention.

    • acknowledged a sort of EULA in which you certified that you didn't leave life animals in your car

      Gee those Swiss are civilised. If the car park was outside an Australian casino the EULA would have to make you certify that you didn't leave your children in the car.

      • Gee those Swiss are civilised. If the car park was outside an Australian casino the EULA would have to make you certify that you didn't leave your children in the car.

        I'm not sure I'd call it that civilized to keep your children alive while on car journeys...

  • Ok, the previous garage had serious problems, the current is (supposedly) OK.

    It would be interesting to know a bit more, specifically what were the main difficulties in building the system? It seems very simple - make sure that the car fits into a (virtual) box ( you can do that by first trying to fit it into a real box :-) ), then put the box into a free space.

    • Probably a Towers of Hanoi type problem. i.e. economically shifting other parked cars to liberate the one right at the back. Could probably overcome it by intelligent stacking using previous park times for the same number plate etc.
      So in short probably no problem from a codiing point of view - reliability of the 'robots' (read moving shelf thingies) is probably the real issue

    • Re:Not very detailed (Score:5, Interesting)

      by ctr2sprt (574731) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @06:39AM (#17902632)

      The fastest way to make this system really complicated is go with dynamic parking spot sizes. Then you'd need to figure out the dimensions of every car being parked and remember them, as well as periodically reorder vehicles to reclaim "dead" space. ("The parking garage is getting slow, we'd better run defrag!") This would be a really, really neat system, but it'd have to be perfect or the robot would slam cars into each other if it guessed their sizes wrong. And quite aside from the cost to repair the damaged vehicles (and probably the damaged robot as well), I'd be worried about some drunk kids riding in their cars as they're being parked (hell, I'm sober and I think it'd be pretty cool) and getting decapitated or something. Imagine the lawsuits coming from that one.

      You could also make the robots somewhat smart, like we do with elevators, and have them reposition cars intelligently based on when they are statistically more likely to be reclaimed. (At work, the parking garage elevators "park" at the 3rd floor at 7am, then gradually move up toward the 10th floor as the garage fills up.) So statistics may show that most people fall into one of two groups: people who park for about an hour, and people who park for about four hours. The robots could then, during idle time, find the cars which are likely to be recalled soon and move them closer to the entrance. This isn't just a convenience thing: if the robot is fetching a car, it can't put one in the garage, so the faster you can get cars in and out, the more cars (over the course of a day) you can store (and the more money you can make). This would be especially crucial for local events like sports games, where 20k people are all going to be getting their cars at the same time.

  • someone set us up the car (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The one in NJ dropped cars? I remember it was shut down with cars inside by a contract dispute.

    I don't see the big novelty since there's been a variety of systems in Japan for a dog's age, but this is an American design, at least according to sharply-named Robotic Parking Systems's website. (Which I won't link to, since it has pretty much no actual content and is only missing the Monorail Song.)

    Do love this quote from the vendor in TFA: "What seems to have happened is that the developers have been wanting t

  • big deal! (Score:5, Funny)

    by keeboo (724305) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @06:14AM (#17902518)
    which can squeeze 67 cars in space that would otherwise hold only 24

    The junk yards have been doing that for years.

  • Very common in Japan (Score:4, Informative)

    by TorKlingberg (599697) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @06:23AM (#17902556)
    These automatic parking systems are everywhere in Japan. Especially in the craped city centers, but even many normal apartment buildings have them to cram in a parking spot for each apartment.

    • These automatic parking systems are everywhere in Japan. Especially in the craped city centers

      For a minute there I thought you were talking about Kuala Lumpur. There is a machine like that near the Hotel Malaya in KL. It is a horrible big steel thing. Four stories high. You wouldn't want to stick your hand in. It was working when I was there in 2000 and (surprisingly) still working a couple of months ago. I don't think its very automatic though.

    • These automatic parking systems are everywhere in Japan. Especially in the craped city centers, but even many normal apartment buildings have them to cram in a parking spot for each apartment.
      Here is the info page from a company that sells these systens, large and small.
      http://www.seiden-kousan.co.jp/html/parking.html [seiden-kousan.co.jp]

  • In my previous job we had one (Score:4, Interesting)

    by MK_CSGuy (953563) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @06:29AM (#17902592)
    In my previous job (3 years ago) there was a robotic parking lot - you parked your car inside a garage-sized room and a robotic arm/elevator combo. using electro magnets parked it in the "lot" (if I remember correctly it was a shaft both underground and in the building itself). In the end of the day you put your parking-card thru the card reader and the robotic combo. brought it to the garage-sized room. It saved much space and is really cool. The disadvantages I saw where:
    a) 17:00 most of the people in the building finished their work. BAM, long line of workers infront of the garage-sized room. Sure, it can be solved with more "terminals" (aka the garage-sized rooms) but this takes more space. Also, altough in regular parking lots there is also a bottle-neck in the exit, I suspect they will usually be faster.
    b) in the first few weeks of the system's operation there were two accidents - the robotic arm with the elcetromagnets ripped of their roofs. This was solved with further tuning but needless to say that some people were afraid to put their car into this system :)

    Overall I think such a system is good if there is a space problem, but in terms of costs I really don't know how it compares.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by MichaelSmith (789609)

      in the first few weeks of the system's operation there were two accidents - the robotic arm with the elcetromagnets ripped of their roofs.

      I hear that happens in Iraq from time to time as well :(

      I have to say I don't like the idea of picking the cars up by the roof with a magnet. Roofs are only designed to be structural in compression (if you roll over), not routinely as a way of moving the car around. What happens if the roof distorts slightly and stuffs up the seal around the doors?

      • I have to say I don't like the idea of picking the cars up by the roof with a magnet. Roofs are only designed to be structural in compression (if you roll over), not routinely as a way of moving the car around. What happens if the roof distorts slightly and stuffs up the seal around the doors?
        And, more importantly, what happens if you have a cabrio?

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Software (179033)
        The robotic arm was not supposed to touch the roof. It was moving to pick up some other car and happened to hit the roof of the unfortunate vehicle.
  • I guess I am already using the next -release, while my wife is only using -unstable.

    BA DA BING!

  • I love this comment (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jimicus (737525) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @06:48AM (#17902680) Homepage

    "It is a complete virtual impossibility that damage can occur," he said.
    Make up your mind. It's either impossible or it's not. If it's not, do those "we do not accept any responsibility blah blah blah" signs have any legal bearing? Because I really don't want to lose my no claims discount because of your car park.

  • The real question (Score:4, Funny)

    by name*censored* (884880) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @07:13AM (#17902788)
    The real question is, do we still tip robots the standard 12%, or do they get 15% for doing such a good job?

    (disclaimer: I don't actually come from a "tipping" country, so I dont know if the 12% is correct)

    • Re:The real question (Score:4, Funny)

      by Monkeys!!! (831558) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @09:57AM (#17904320) Homepage
      In my experiences with tipping, this simple equation has become quite handy:

      Tip = the change you can't be arsed finding space for in your wallet

      *doesn't come from a tipping country as well, but has "tipped" overseas*
  • Am I the only one who likes being able to get my car out if the grid is down? In the last major blackout I had to drive home to NYC, the next day I figured if I had no electricity I may as well go camping so I drove to NJ. One fuse blown and my car could be stuck for no good reason.

    I, for one, do *not* welcome our new robotic parking overlords.
    • There's nothing stopping them (unless there's new municipal codes of which I'm unaware) from having an emergency generator onsite.

      The 'one blown fuse' is something of another issue, though - what level of testing have all the components gone through?

  • Automated Storage and Retrieval (Score:3, Insightful)

    by sjbe (173966) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @07:46AM (#17902978)
    This is just a new application of automated storage and retrieval systems (AS/RS) [wikipedia.org]. They've been around for quite some time in warehousing applications, particularly for manufacturing and libraries. They're particularly useful when dense storage of a wide variety of items is needed. They can be quite secure since you only have to control access to the user terminal to control what goes in or out. They also are generally very reliable and easy to use.

    The downsides? All that automation is pretty expensive. Unless one has fairly specific needs there usually are cheaper and simpler alternatives. There also is the risk of breakdowns and regular maintenance is of course required. Power outages obviously will shut the system down and prevent access. The biggest problem though is that if one isn't careful about data entry regarding where things are stored, doing physical inventory and finding lost items can be a BIG problem. If you say the item is in bin 6A and it's really in bin 7C, there is generally no easy way to find it other than searching bin by bin. Not fun even on a small AS/RS system. RFID and barcoding can help in some cases but it's still a serious challenge.
    • Actually this is not even a new application. Here in Torino (Italy) there are at least three such parkins, and all of them are at least 10 years old...

  • More parking spots = Longer lines (Score:3, Interesting)

    by lake2112 (748837) on Tuesday February 06 2007, @09:36AM (#17904054)
    I lived a block away from the Hoboken, NJ garage. Getting your car in the morning or the evening for rush hour usually required at least a 20-30 minute wait. Police were required in the evening to direct traffic around a bunch of cars waiting for a robot to load cars.

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