Hyundai Motor (005380), Hyundai Wia (011210), and Hyundai Engineering & Construction (000720) have joined forces to launch South Korea’s first parking robot demonstration project targeting apartment complexes. Attention is focused on whether cutting-edge robotics can resolve chronic parking shortages and safety concerns.
Hyundai Motor Group announced on the 10th that the consortium formed by the three companies will pursue the apartment parking robot pilot at “Hillstate The Wave City,” located in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province. The project was approved as a smart demonstration initiative through the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport’s Smart City Regulatory Sandbox and is being conducted with government funding.
The demonstration will take place in a designated 53-space zone on the first basement level of the Hillstate The Wave City parking garage, utilizing two sets of Hyundai Wia’s parking robots.
Hyundai Wia’s parking robot consists of a pair of slim, flat robots, each just 110mm thick. The robots maneuver under a vehicle, lift it by its wheels, and transport it to the target location. LiDAR sensors mounted on the robots precisely detect the size and position of the vehicle’s wheels to ensure stable lifting. The system is designed to automatically park large SUVs weighing up to 3.4 tons, moving at a maximum speed of 1.2 meters per second.
Notably, the robots can move in all directions—forward, backward, left, and right—allowing them to position vehicles freely even in tight spaces where human parking is difficult. A Hyundai Wia representative explained, “With parking robots, drivers don’t need to maneuver the vehicle themselves or remain inside while it’s being moved, eliminating the need for door-opening clearance and enabling tighter parking spacing.” The representative added, “We plan to further enhance space utilization by applying double and triple parking configurations.”
Drivers simply exit their vehicles at designated drop-off and pick-up zones within the apartment complex, then summon their cars via a kiosk or the apartment’s wall pad. The parking robot automatically transports the vehicle to an available space. When retrieving the car, the vehicle is delivered to the pick-up zone by the time the driver steps out of the elevator.
Hyundai Motor Group expects the robot-based parking system to boost parking capacity by at least 20% and up to 50% within the same floor area. By eliminating the time drivers spend circling to find empty spaces, the system reduces wasted time and unnecessary idling. It also fundamentally separates vehicle and pedestrian traffic flows, significantly lowering the risk of accidents within parking facilities. Furthermore, minimizing unnecessary vehicle movement is expected to yield environmental benefits, including reduced carbon emissions and fine dust.
During the demonstration period, Hyundai Motor Group plans to measure a wide range of data, including per-vehicle entry and exit times, actual user wait times, parking success rates, robot utilization rates, monthly task volumes, and parking space efficiency improvements.
The empirical data gathered will be used to formulate concrete proposals for improving laws and regulations related to parking robots. In parallel, the group will build virtual environment models to research optimized parking space layouts for various building types, including residential, commercial, office, transportation hub, public, and cultural facilities. Through this, the consortium aims to establish operational standards for calculating the optimal number of parking spaces and robots per building type, and to comprehensively derive the traffic flow improvements, spatial utilization benefits, and economic effects from a smart city perspective.
A Hyundai Motor Group official stated, “This apartment parking robot demonstration project is a crucial step beyond mere technology verification—it establishes a new parking paradigm for the smart city era.” The official added, “By comprehensively validating the operational stability, efficiency, and user convenience of parking robots in a real residential environment, we plan to develop a standard model that can be expanded to various urban spaces both domestically and internationally.”