Automated, underground parking system When the robot parks the bike

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Underground parking facilities for bikes: The Japanese manufacturer Giken has built a garage called Eco Cycle, which parks bicycles fully automated, underground. To ensure the fail-safe operation of the robot garage, the engineers rely on robust and maintenance-free energy chains from igus for the elevator's cabling.

Sunday afternoon, 30 degrees, the sun is shining: The perfect opportunity to leisurely ride your bike into town and indulge in an ice cream. Once there, the nasty surprise: All parking spaces are taken. The alternative, leaving your bike on the sidewalk, turns out to be a fatal mistake. After the ice cream, the bike is stolen. This problem affects thousands of cyclists around the world, as parking spaces are scarce. But there is a solution that is currently being established in Japan: an underground garage called Eco Cycle by Giken, a technology manufacturer from Tokyo with nearly 700 employees. It is a giant robotic system that is fully automated. Cyclists don't have to venture into dark areas, but can leave their bikes above ground at a reception station that looks like the entrance of an elevator. Another advantage: the cityscape remains almost unchanged.

Robot parks bicycles fully automated in underground space

Here's how the futuristic garage, which now stands 63 times in 26 cities in Japan and may someday also be seen in Germany or other countries, works: The cyclist places his bike at the registration station on a rail in the ground and checks in contactlessly via a card scanner. Then the show begins. A door opens and a gripper at ground level pulls the bike over the rail into the inside of the car-sized station. The bike is now on top of a mobile platform that descends up to 16 meters deep and can rotate 360 degrees. This lift is surrounded by round walls, to which 200 rail-shaped bicycle carriers are mounted at regular intervals. The diameter of this room is 8.5 meters. What happens next looks like something out of a science fiction movie. The elevator descends, stops at a level with a free parking space, and turns in the right direction. A telescopic mechanism then pushes the bike onto the bike carrier. The parking process takes an average of 13 seconds.

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Igus energy chains protect the elevator's cables and survive 4.5 million operating cycles

Plenty of parking space, virtually no change to the cityscape and a robot taking over the parking: such a degree of automation brings many advantages, but also has a potential downside: humans are reliant on the reliability of the machine. In the event of a lift defect, such as a faulty control line, 200 cyclists would have to angrily walk home. Therefore, Giken relies on energy chains made of high-performance plastic from the E4.42 and 1400 series by igus. They ensure that the energy and data lines of the parking system follow the horizontal and vertical movements in the lifting and telescopic shafts in a controlled manner. "The energy chains protect the electrical lines of the elevator from mechanical damage and external influences, which is essential for the reliable operation of the entire system," says Jörg Ottersbach, Business Unit Manager e-chains at igus. The e-chains are easy to assemble and maintain, which increases the cost-effectiveness of the system. In addition, they are extremely robust and durable. "Our energy chains are designed to achieve the high service life of up to 4.5 million operating cycles at high speeds and accelerations required by Giken without any problems." The lifting axis of the elevator operates at a speed of 3 m/s and an acceleration of 3 m/s², the telescopic axis even with 4 m/s² at a stroke of 2.6 m. "The use of our energy chains made of high-performance plastic helps to increase the operational safety and efficiency of the Eco Cycle bicycle parking garages," says Ottersbach.

This article was first published on our sister brand 'AT' Switzerland (German Edition), Vogel Communications Group