Gitex 2024: How robot 'Parkie' will lift your car and fit it into a tight parking space

It was among a host of transport solutions on display at the tech show in Dubai

Mia Choi, senior associate at HL Mando, explains how 'Parkie' robots will slide under the car and efficiently move it into tight parking spots. Pawan Singh / The National

The challenge of manoeuvring cars into tight parking spaces could become a thing of the past if specialised robots on show at Gitex 2024 enter the mainstream.

Parkie, designed by Korean company HL Mando, claims to be the world’s first autonomous parking robot.

Drivers will need to step out and let the flat-bed robot take over. It will slide under the car, lift it and move it, even into a spot so tight that it doesn't allow doors to open.

Parkie is aimed at the commercial sector, mostly hotels and offices that need to maximise vehicle spaces at car parks of limited size.

At about $200,000 for a pair of Parkie robots, the technology does not come cheap, but Mia Choi, senior associate at HL Mando, said costs would come down as the manufacturing scale increases.

“Parkie can make parking easier for drivers but it goes beyond that because it enables a driverless parking operation,” she said.

Car parks, she added, "often have a lot of idle spaces, with extra space needed for people to get in or out of the car. With this parking solution, you don't need to have those extra spaces because people don't need to go into their cars. It can increase available parking slots from 30 per cent to 100 per cent.”

Testing is under way in Korea, with plans to expand commercially across the world in 2025.

Mobility and transport solutions are a major aspect of the technology show at the Dubai World Trade Centre.

AI smart-city traffic solutions

More than 30 motorways in the US already use artificial intelligence to efficiently manage traffic flow based on the number of vehicles on the road.

Derq has trialled it in Las Vegas, where the metropolitan area's traffic signals, road cameras and flow detectors were used as sources of traffic data.

The system can also monitor pedestrian movement at crossing points and warn approaching vehicles to slow down, thus pre-empting potential accidents.

“We can detect and track every single road user on the roadway, understand what their behaviour is and make real-time decisions based on that,” said Derq’s co-founder and chief operating officer Karl Jeanbart.

This could prove beneficial for events such as Gitex, with Mr Jeanbart confident the company’s AI algorithms could help manage pedestrian traffic.

“By understanding the size of the crowd that's waiting to cross and if they have crossed over we can understand more about trends at events like Gitex to improve flow," he added.

“We know what the flashpoint is going to be, so we can help collect data and rebuild heat maps for agencies where they have conflict hotspots so they identify potential for collisions.” The big issue, Mr Jeanbart said, is that "sensor infrastructure data is quite poor".

“With the type of technology we enable, we can help agencies gather a lot more data in real-time to better manage traffic to respond to incidents faster."

While “Dubai is quite advanced in terms of technology, there's more that can be done to leverage cameras, as they are not really used for traffic management, but more for road operations".

“By getting real-time notifications, they can better understand road-user behaviour and traffic patterns, to plan better and make decisions in advance. We developed AI that integrates with deployed cameras, for example, CCTV cameras and traffic cameras. To ingest that in real-time, we run our algorithms.”

The technology has already been used in Dubai's Silicon Oasis, where it powers intelligent pedestrian crossings.

Sky scooters

French company Zapata is the latest to display its version of personal drone transport, through its single-seater Air Scooter.

The hybrid personal air vehicle can be flown without a pilot’s licence, has a flight time of two hours and a top speed of about 100kph.

A company representative said the vehicle would be available for use next year. “It's a hybrid electric with a combustion engine and electric motor,” she said. “They provide thrust and also recharge batteries during flight. Due to its weight and speed restrictions, it can be used without a pilot licence."

It is still undergoing an "unmanned flying testing campaign, and about to start the first manned flight with a pilot in the next week or two in France".

There is still no word on when it will take flight in the UAE, but the representative was confident it "needed to work around the regulations".

In the US, air scooters will be sold to people who will need to take simulator training at flight centres before "taking to the skies".