Robot Parking Garage to Open in New York

A vehicle is lowered through the floor into an automated parking garage in New York, Wednesday, Jan. 24, 2007. The parking garage is the first of its kind in the United States. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens) (Kathy Willens - AP)

Automotion's Milstein said that in the 11 years Stolzer Parkhaus has built robotic garages, only one car has been damaged, in an incident involving a half-set parking brake. Even that loophole has now been eliminated with the addition of an additional sensor, he said.

"It is a complete virtual impossibility that damage can occur," he said.

If the garage lives up to that claim, it would certainly be a safety record unheard of for traditional garages, where not only cars but people get hurt and even killed. Even the Hoboken garage may not look like a disaster by comparison, though it's rare for a conventional garage not to give your car back.

The two loading bays in the Chinatown garage are outfitted with enough laser and radar sensors to make Fort Knox jealous. They sense if the car fits on the pallet (it's large enough for medium-sized SUVs) and look for movement to determine whether the driver and passenger have left the car. When the car is properly parked on the pallet, the driver is told to exit the car and leave the bay, and a door closes behind him or her before the pallet descends into the garage.

When the driver comes back for the car, the underground system goes into motion to retrieve it. Because it parks cars two deep in some slots, it sometimes needs to shuffle cars around to retrieve others. The software figures all that out.

In a touch worthy of Inspector Gadget, an underground turntable turns the car around before it's lifted to the surface, ensuring that it's returned facing out into the driveway, eliminating any need to back out of the garage.

Clarke at Robotic Parking Systems said demand for robotic parking is booming in the country after long lagging behind other developed countries.

The company just finished shipping a 900-car garage to Dubai and signed a deal for a 1,200-car garage for the United Arab Emirates, is working on several U.S. projects, including one 229-car garage at the Hollywood Grande resort in Florida.

"Demand is such that they're really stacking up on us," Clarke said. "What seems to have happened is that the developers have been wanting this for a long time, but the architects have been lagging behind. Architects use the same plans over and over, particularly when it comes to parking in a garage."

___

On the Net:

http://www.automotionparking.com

http://www.robopark.com