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What is one thing robots can probably do better than humans?

Answer: Park our cars at the airport.

Anyone who has tried to park their car at the airport can appreciate the new system coming to London’s Gatwick Airport this summer. For three months, the UK’s second-busiest airport will pilot robots that park passengers’ cars for them.

To use the system, passengers simply park their car in one of the little staging garages and tag it with their name and flight info. They then leave, with the keys, and a robot does the rest. Called Stan, the robot was built by France-based Stanley Robotics and can carry cars of up to three tons and 18 feet long.

The Stan goes into the garage, picks up the car, and transports it to an empty parking space out on the lot. Since the robots need less space to maneuver and the car doors don’t need to open for passengers, the cars can be parked much closer together, thus saving space. When the car owner’s return flight lands, a Stan robot will retrieve the car and put it back in the garage to await its driver.



Kate is a senior copy editor in Northern California. She holds a bachelor's degree in English with a minor in professional writing from the University of California, Davis.