Robotic car park in Dubai

Dubai Municipality acting director-general Hussain Nasser Lootah, who inaugurated the Dh2.5 million robotised car parking system — Robot Park, said the civic body had been working with East and West Robotics, a robotised car parks design and manufacturing company, to introduce model project.

The Robot Park, set up at a space of 7.5 by 7.5 metres behind the hotel on Al Maktoum Street, is the first of its kind project in the region, Lootah said.

The company behind the system aims to experiment in other emirates of the country as well.

According to East and West Robotics, a similar facility for 500 cars will cost Dh20 million.

“By experimenting with these smart structures that work automatically the civic body finds that they can be quickly erected and removed if necessary,” Lootah said in a remarks published in the Khaleej Times.

The structures, he said, can be utilised for beautifying the city and it is also possible to use the facade of these facilities for municipality advertisements with messages for creating awareness among the public.

“The structures can also be used for commercial advertisements and generate revenue,” Lootah said.

According to the municipality’s agreement with the private firm, the parking facility will be restricted for civic body officials during office hours and will be free for public later.

Nicholas Fuad Amiouni, design and production manager of East and West Roboticsm said the robotic parking system utilised different electromechanical processes, complemented with artificial intelligence enabling it to park or retrieve a car without the help of a human attendant.

“Instead of a human attendant, an artificially intelligent system controller is initiated through the touch-tone of a mobile phone,” he said.

In other words, the system needs only a missed call to park a car and another to retrieve the vehicle and drive away.

“It takes only 15 seconds to park a car,” Amiouni added in the Press report.