Stanley Robotics, a Paris company, builds Stan, a robot that parks passengers' cars autonomously. Lyon Saint-Exupery (LYS) has run the world's first outdoor robotic valet car park since 2018.
Founded in 2015 with about 50 staff, it is 74.1 per cent owned by HL Robotics, part of HL Holdings, since 2024; Mitsubishi Heavy Industries invested in 2021. Stan lifts and moves cars using satellite positioning, lidar and fleet optimisation.
Lyon has expanded to more than 500 spaces and four robots, and London Gatwick (LGW) runs it at the North Terminal. A deal with EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse (BSL) lacks current confirmation.
Stanley Robotics' Stan valet-parking robot went into service at Lyon Saint-Exupéry in March 2019, a world first, VINCI Airports said on 28 January 2020. At the start it covered nearly 500 spaces in the P5+ car park, Airport Technology reported on 15 March 2019.
VINCI's 2020 release also announced an extension to 2,000 spaces, due to open that summer.
Stan is still there. Stanley Robotics operates the robot at Lyon, HL Robotics said in 2025.
Gatwick launched robotic valet parking with Stanley Robotics in summer 2026, announcing on 23 July 2026 that it was the first UK airport to offer the service. The facility is near the South Terminal, and the first passengers were due to use it in August 2026.
Drivers leave the car in an enclosed cabin, confirm on a screen and keep their keys. Robots then lift the car by its tyres and move it to a parking space, and bring it back to a cabin in time for the passenger's return flight, according to Gatwick; the service must be booked in advance.
Gatwick first trialled Stanley Robotics' system in 2019, and figures from that trial, including a plan reported by The Independent to replace 170 self-park spaces with 270 robotic ones, do not describe the 2026 service. Gatwick has not published the capacity of the new facility or any usage figures since launch, and neither company describes the robots as AI.
An outdoor autonomous robot system that lifts passenger vehicles by the wheels and transports them to parking spaces within a secured car park zone. Combines autonomous mobile robots with an intelligent fleet management software platform.
The problem it addresses
Eliminates the need for passengers to find and navigate to parking spaces, increases car park capacity by up to 50% through high-density block parking, reduces vehicle damage risk by excluding public access from the parking area, and lowers CO2 emissions by removing passenger vehicle circulation within the car park.
Key features
Fully autonomous outdoor operation, no human driver required
Vehicle lift mechanism that clamps onto wheels and lifts vehicle without requiring key access
On-the-fly vehicle scanning to measure dimensions before parking
Intelligent fleet management software for parking space optimization
6 more features
Integration with real-time flight information to time vehicle retrieval
Passenger-facing booking and check-in via touchscreen cabin and online reservation
High-density block parking increasing capacity by up to 50%
24/7 continuous operation
Private 5G connectivity support for fleet scaling (deployed at Lyon Saint-Exupery)
Electric-powered robots with zero direct emissions
Technical specifications (8)
Maximum vehicle weight: 3 tonnes (approximately 3,000 kg)
Maximum vehicle length: approximately 5.5 m (18 ft)
Single robot manages up to 400 parking spaces
Single robot handles 20,000 to 30,000 car movements per year
Positioning technology: GNSS (Trimble BX992 dual-antenna) fused with LiDAR for centimeter-level localization
Real-time map creation per mission via vehicle scanning
Fleet scalability: up to 100 robots per site with private 5G connectivity
Demonstrated capacity: 500 spaces with 4 robots at Lyon Saint-Exupery P5+ car park
Certifications and approvals
Airport Carbon Accreditation (awarded to the Stanley Robotics system)
Notes held in the Aerostack register. Aerostack has not independently verified them.
Market context
Stanley Robotics pioneered outdoor autonomous valet parking with its Stan robot, a globally unique category.
Read the rest
The airport parking market is attractive because (a) airports have high land costs making space efficiency economically valuable, and (b) airport operators are sophisticated technology buyers with long contract cycles.
The HL Robotics acquisition brings South Korean manufacturing scale and a global distribution network for expansion beyond European airports.
Primary competition comes from automated mechanical parking systems (Woehr, Klaus Multiparking) and manual valet services.
The technology increases parking capacity by up to 50% in existing footprints, a strong ROI argument that avoids the need for new construction.
Profile data from the Aerostack companies register; deployment records from the verified register. Evidence grades: T1 first-party confirmation, T2 credible reporting. See Our approach for how records are graded.
Aerostack companies register
Aerostack tracks AI deployments across airports and airlines, with the published evidence behind each record. Photography is real aviation imagery. Record thumbnails may show the named airport or airline; other photographs do not.
