Gatwick airport trial for valet-parking robots
standard.co.uk
standard.co.uk
Something tells me Gatwick isn't actually in possession of the decryption key for the US Air Force's P (precise) signal and this is just some PR person taking it too far.
P may have once stood for precise, but now days the main advantage of the encrypted, military P signal is that it prevents spoofing attacks.
Equally if not more important why was your good old hardware minituarization and its cost reduction. In the late 90s a decent GPS reciever was still a size of thick book and cost prohibitively.
Again, coupled with differential corrections (available for free over radio) the resulting precision was in centimeter range. The reason it wasn't used was the physical size and cost (for hand-held navigation) and the lack of supporting hardware in cars (no user-facing on-board systems with screens and UI).
SA was _not_ the reason for the lack of consumer-level GPS adoption.
That is certainly "military grade".
Their site looks like its there to attract investors rather than sell any kind of real product.. i might be wrong but i don't think this is going to amount to anything, shame.
I don't see how 2 tons are being lifted from such a low and thin surface. The whole thing looks more like a Kickstarter than a real product.
Edit: Nope this is 100% legit
Example of an electric one: https://youtu.be/w7MG3DOwAhQ
Quite close to this Stanley device. They claim capacity of 3,5 tons. Forks are not as long, but the mechanics seem such that extending them should not be a problem.
https://www.lyonaeroports.com/en/parkings-airport/car-parks-...
Also they seem to use ectorparking.com at Lyon, are you affiliated with Ector?
Have you had any communication with tire manufacturers about how you lift the car that way?
Wouldn't that put unusual stress on the tire plies? Maybe once or twice might be OK, but if someone did this to tires 500 times a year (e.g. commuting to work, once at arrival at garage at work, once at departure from work) would the tires still be OK?
Car owners probably drop off their car and then get valeted into a spot.
This means the car is started and ran for a few minutes before being shut down again, draining some precious battery power that isn't recharged in time.
Repeat when the owner requests the car's return.
This may make the difference between a car that starts when its owner returns vs not.
Now if it's parked onto a slope or exposed to heavy winds...
In addition, cars have very precise jacking locations which must be used to lift them without damage. Those bots probably don't know where to jack every particular vehicle. Do they just jam a dolly under the wheels?
I'd give this a hard pass. It is probably just a way to separate some money from some dumb VCs.
I guess that much tighter parking is the goal, to make this pay, but it's not clear how far they can go here -- it looks like every car can be accessed without moving others, needing clear aisles.
Also, the column spacing in many buildings is designed around parking-bay sizes, which will limit how much you can save in any existing building. And it would be one hell of a 50-year bet to design a new building only for this system.
The video shows nothing. It only shows "before" and "after", not "during". It's totally fake. The video doesn't answer the question of how the wheels magically get on top of the sled.
Is the body somehow jacked up to lift the car off the ground? If so, how is this done safely? Most unibody cars can only be jacked up by lifting at very specific points. You can't just slide a large piece of metal underneath to lift the car. Well, you can, but you'll probably damage the car.
Watch 1:12 in the video. You can see the white-tipped prongs around the wheel
Here's a side view.
_O_ _O_There's a jump between 1:11 and 1:12 in the video. Just before, the sled bumps into the tires in the front of the car. You can actually see the car physically jerk back as the sled hits. Just after, all four wheels of the car have magically appeared on top of the sled.
Phooey.
If this were as simple as everyone thinks, there would not be a jump in the video at the exact point that the magic happens!
The sled moves under the car. When the sled is under the car the fingers extend under the wheels. They do not, cannot, extend under the part of the wheel that is in contact with the ground. But they can, and do, extend to the parts of the wheel that are close to the ground. Again, look at 1:12. You can see the prongs go around the wheel, not directly underneath it.
The videos linked to by improbable22 make it easier to see this.
My (very limited) understanding of radial tires (or at least steel belted ones) is that it would be bad to stress the tires in that manner for long periods of time. But lifting the car by the tires this way for a few minutes should be OK?
It would be interesting to learn what tire manufacturers feel about this. (Of course they probably would want to disclaim liability because there's no reason for them to want to bless this).
And only for 4 travelers? Why that arbitrary limitation? Why can’t they handle 5 travelers?