VIDEO: Robo-valet to revolutionise car parking

Israeli tech firm, Unitronics Automated Solutions, has unveiled what it's calling the car park of the future, which employs autonomous robots to ensure you'll never have to park your own car again.

Building a new state-of-the-art car park in West Hollywood, California, the company has shown that parking in the future could not be simpler.

All it will involve, as the Wired video blog demonstrates, is driving to the front entrance of the car park, where you stop, lock and leave your vehicle, take your keys with you and let the robots take over.

Claimed to be fully autonomous, the small robo-valets slide under your car and then lift it by its own wheels. Your car is then carried to a lift while a central computer assigns a parking space.

The robot then parks your vehicle and awaits your return.

The advantages of the innovative self-parking robots are numerous. The robots can park vehicles far closer than humans as there’s no need to open doors to gain access. Parking close together, Unitronics says, can liberate space for up to three times as many vehicles to park in the same volume as a normal car park.

Next, since the robo-valets take lifts and move in any direction there's also no need for ramps to gain access to each floor. This means more valuable space is freed up for parking more cars.

Unitronics says when it built the West Hollywood car park the tech company saved more than $US one million in building materials, due to the automated parking facility’s efficient design.

In the future, the tech company hopes its parking robots will become popular in built-up urban areas because its auto-parking technology cuts air and noise pollution as the vehicles are moved around using electric-powered robots.

Perhaps, pessimistically, Unitronics also predicts the demise of the car park itself. That’s why its patented design for a car park can be easily converted into office space or apartment living if demand for car parking in the future wanes.

Unitronics has also developed new technology to help support Tesla's ‘Summon’ feature. In the next few years it says your car will drop you off in the town centre and then drive autonomously to one of its garages where its robo-valets will safely park your vehicle. When you summon your vehicle the car will then auto pay its parking fee and leave the car park in search of its owners.

Of course the new auto car park of the future isn't perfect. Currently the technology can only park 100 cars an hour and, if you turn up without giving any notice it can take up to ten long minutes for the robo-valets to retrieve your vehicle.

Unitronics has already embarked on its second fully autonomous parking lot in New Jersey, and a third car park in Brooklyn, NY.

The tech company is also reportedly approaching cities throughout the world, where parking is at a premium, to offer to retrofit its hardware to help double or triple capacity in even small car parks.

The company says that its valet robots will ensure parking scrapes and dents will be a thing of the past.

Owners of parking facilities will also face significantly lower costs as there will no longer be any need to light car parks at night time. Security will also improve as the car storage areas will, in the future, be human-free areas.