In Düsseldorf, A Robot Valet Will Park Your Car

stephendavion (2872091) writes In Germany, high tech has come to airport parking. Last week, Düsseldorf airport (DUS) introduced robot valets to take the hassle out of parking for travelers. Travelers can leave their cars at the arrival level of the ParkingPLUS structure. As they leave, they confirm on a touch-screen that no one is in the car. The robot valet, nicknamed "Ray," takes it from there. The robot measures the vehicle, picks it up with a forklift-like system, and takes it to the back area, where it will position it in one of the 249 parking spots reserved for automated valets. The machine is capable of carrying standard cars weighing up to 3.31 tons.

Comments

i don't wanna hear how lazy americans are.

[NemoinSpace]

Maybe we don't want to make our cars any more, but we have plenty of highly skilled valets.

Re: i don't wanna hear how lazy americans are.

[arth1]

really the whole "americans are fat" thing is mostly a product of misinformation at this point.

Um, no. The obesity here in the US is exceptional.

And really, I don't see why any country should be ashamed of a statistic like this... does it lead to higher incidents of heart disease? Sure... and? People chose bacon over low cholesterol... get over it.

Many supermarkets here supply their obese customers with scooter like shopping carts because they're to fat to walk.
Levi's sells jeans with a 58" waist.
We've become the laughing stock of the world.

Re: i don't wanna hear how lazy americans are.

[arth1]

statistically germans and english are about as fat... Some years, I think they've surpassed us.

I actually looked this up. For every year there are figures, the US obesity rate has been more than twice as high as Germany.
As for the UK, they're up there too, but has never had a higher rate than the US.

Many of the pacific countries have an even higher percentage of obesity, but among OECD countries, the US ranks top.

Re: i don't wanna hear how lazy americans are.

[Anonymous Coward]

> We've become the laughing stock of the world.

Only to hipsters and eurofags. They bleat about tolerance and inclusion, except when it comes to people they disapprove of, and then suddenly they become snarky sarcastic little bitches with superiority complexes.

Re: i don't wanna hear how lazy americans are.

[Paradise Pete]

People chose bacon over low cholesterol... get over it.

A big part of the problem why Americans (and others) are fatter and fatter are because of misbeliefs foisted upon them.
Fatty foods don't cause heart disease. Sugar, stress, and smoking do. A high cholesterol count does not cause heart disease. It is a *symptom*, not a cause. It is your body attempting to repair the damage.
Avoiding fats is a very good way to fatten yourself up. You'll instead be ingesting sugar and other carbohydrates, and you'll quickly feel hungry again. The sugar in your bloodstream requires the release of insulin to process it. The insulin tells the fat cells to open up and start sucking up all that sugar. When there an over-abundance the walls of your arteries get inflamed in the process, causing your body to *produce* cholesterol to attempt to heal the damage. Then you've got leftover insulin in the blood, and so you feel hungry again so you can put it to use.
Stop accepting what you've been told all your life. Stop eating sugar and stop avoiding fats. It's good for your brain and your heart, and you won't eat as much because you'll feel full for much longer.

Re: i don't wanna hear how lazy americans are.

[CRCulver]

While Europe does have expanding waistlines and plenty of people get plump as they age, I cannot imagine an epidemic of morbid obesity like in the United States. Soft drinks and highly processed foods are more expensive here than in the United States, and in many countries there is sufficient momentum to get "fat taxes" passed on soft drinks and fast food.

And I don't think people would stand for it socially. I often go to the Deep South where I have family, and so many people are morbidly obese that no one bats an eye any more, and if you did confront people about their weight, they would say "Oh, uh, it must be a thyroid problem". In Europe, people tend to be more aware that thyroid problems are fairly uncommon and controllable by medication.

Re: i don't wanna hear how lazy americans are.

[Karmashock]

How would you know?

Seriously... the whole thing exists almost entirely in the media and no where else.

Can you find land whales if you look for them? Sure... so what? That proves nothing.

This is as bogus as the "Americans don't know history/geography" line which is only true in that they don't know EUROPEAN history or geography as well as europeans. But by the same token, europeans don't know american history or american geography.

I've quizzed them on it repeatedly and they know nothing beyond what you'd get out of a few movies. Which is less then worthless.

Yet these same people will turn around and turn their noses up at americans because they don't know about some battle or war or general in 1204 or 1672 in France, Germany, Italy, England, whatever.

But ask the same people to answer something basic like what was the Bacon rebellion and they have no idea. Ask them name which original colonies were Dutch versus English... I could go on but the point is that they don't know American history.

Which is fine. I don't expect them to be as knowledgeable of our history. By the same token, its unreasonable for them to assume anyone really gives a shit about European history unless you're a European.

The japanese don't care. Ask them what the war of the Roses was and very few of them will have any clue.

I don't hear the euros bashing the Japanese for their poor grasp of history. But by the same token if the same Japanese person were to ask either an American or a European to answer some question about Meiji dynasty we'd be generally clueless.

So on and so forth.

The whole thing is bullshit. Some people need to feel superior so they'll come up with stupid reasons to feel that way and without any real evidence they'll maintain that position because its important to their fragile little egos.

The whole thing is contemptible because it reveals that people aren't thinking for themselves. It would be fine if one person came up with this notion and maintained it... he'd just be an asshole. But what we have is worse. We have lots of people believing this same asshole for no reason and repeating what he said to all their friends and just repeating it over and over again like it becomes true if you say it a thousand times.

Think for yourselves please... or its really quite justified to regard you all as mindless groupthink halfwits.

Re: i don't wanna hear how lazy americans are.

[Plumpaquatsch]

in 15-20 years Europe will pass America for Fatness.

Because most fat Americans will have exploded by then.

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[AK Marc]

No, they are designed to be lifted by lift. Lifts use designed jackpoints. A forklift could be set to mimic this action. That's well within the design parameters of the cars.

but do they have robotic hookers?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget parking cars, do they gots those robotic hookers I can park my dick in?

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[Travis Mansbridge]

Actually, from this part of the video, it looks like two slats converge under the front and rear wheels. This would also be suitable for lifting three-wheeled cars (mentioned in a comment below).

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[RCSInfo]

At the bottom of the article is a linked video to the robot manufacturer. The robots do indeed lift the cars by the wheels. This video is much more interesting than the animated one from the article.

It does (video)

[saibot834]

Here's a video of the actual thing, not just an animation.

This is not news

[podz]

They had the same system in downtown Frankfurt already 15 years ago. I know because I used it.

Re:This is not news

[GrahamCox]

Also in the news, we have Unicode! Slashdot, have you heard of it?

Re:What could possibly go wrong

[itzly]

I love how the first reaction is to come up with a disadvantage that affects 0.01% of the population. Simple solution: cars that don't have 4 wheels can't be parked by the robot and they'll send you to the regular lot.

Re:Should be denser!

[FatLittleMonkey]

From the picture it looks like it takes just as much space as a regular parking garage, but I think the real potential in a system like this is in maximizing the density of parked cars.

If you skip the retarded sites like "Mashable" in TFS, you'll find that it actually does increase the density of parking.

(Even Jalopnik has better information.)

I'm picturing something like an Amazon warehouse, but with cars on each shelf.

Those kinds of shelf parking systems already exist, however, they require building an entirely new parking structure. The robot "valets" work with existing structures, which means a parking operator can upgrade just for the price of a few robots plus the check-in station, rather than having to tear down and rebuild from scratch. The operator can also introduce the robots gradually, say dedicating one floor to robot parking and charging a premium for "valet" service, increasing the number of robots as revenue allows.

This is not novel

[wickerprints]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...

The basic idea has been around for a while now, in a number of countries besides Germany. And it has less to do with laziness or luxury, and more to do with maximizing the use of valuable space in areas of high urban density. The only thing that appears to be novel here is the use of a free-moving robot rather than a conveyance that is incorporated into the parking structure itself. Granted, there are other benefits as well--being able to retrieve your car rapidly and efficiently reduces parking structure congestion and environmental pollution from excessive idling.