The invention relates to an automatic parking system for vehicles, such as passenger cars or like, which comprises: one or more access and/or exit terminals, in which a client leaves his/her vehicle for its automatic parking and/or from which he/she picks up his/her vehicle; a parking room arrangement, which comprises one or more radially successive, circumferential parking rooms, which is/are provided with parking levels in two or more vertically overlapping layers, the parking levels having radially directed parking sectors for vehicle parking; an elevator arrangement for moving of the vehicles in vertical direction by one or more lifts; a horizontal transfer arrangement for moving of the vehicles horizontally, in radial direction by one or more horizontal conveyors; a control and actuator automation in order to perform transferring of vehicles in a machine-operated manner from an access terminal to a free parking sector and from a parking sector to an exit terminal; a parking supervision and invoicing automation in order to register/render a receipt regarding a parking transaction to a client for picking up of a vehicle and for invoicing for the parking; and a rotating or stationary center part that is empty or in which there has been arranged one/some of the above mentioned operations .

In order to make parking more efficient particularly in urban areas, so called parking houses are being used at present, which have as overlapping layers parking levels marked with parking spaces. A driver drives his/her vehicle into a parking house and gets e.g. a parking ticket at an access port, whereafter he/she drives inside the parking house to search for a suitable parking space for his/her vehicle. When picking up his/her vehicle, the driver pays a parking fee, fetches the vehicle and drives it out through an exit port after opening the same with a payment receipt that he/she received. In parking houses a monitoring system is often applied particularly with a view to rush hours, which informs e.g. in a so called traffic- light operated manner whether any free parking spaces are left or by means of a digital display the amount of free parking spaces. Despite these kinds of arrangements, the driver may have to drive his/her car to the uppermost level, in case there is not to be found e.g. a wide enough parking space for his/her car from lower levels, and furthermore turn his car in the uppermost level, in case a suitable place can not be found from there, either. In case the situation in the lower levels has not changed during returning downwards, he/she must drive out from the parking house and get a new place for parking from somewhere else. Parking in parking houses is often a very time consuming and laborious task, particularly due to tightly dimensioned passage ways and parking spaces.

Particularly in order to make parking easier, it is on the other hand known to exploit also so called automatic parking systems, as one example of which may be mentioned the solution according to patent US 5,478,182. This solution is based on a circumferentially shaped stationary parking room, at a center part of which there are arranged lifts that rotate around a vertical center axis. In connection with the lifts there has been arranged a horizontal transfer arrangement for transferring of a vehicle from an access terminal to a lift and from the lift furthermore into some free parking space in some parking level and, when the vehicle is being picked up, from a parking space to an exit terminal. Furthermore in patent publications WO 99/37872 and US 5,024,571 implementations are presented, the principles of which correspond to the same of the above and in both of which also use of e.g. two radially successive, stationary parking rooms is suggested, whereby in intermediate spaces between the parking rooms, there are elevator and transfer arrangements in order to transfer vehicles in a machine operated manner from access terminals to free parking spaces and furthermore when the vehicles are being picked up from the parking spaces to exit terminals.

A common feature to all of the solutions described above is that despite parking that is made more efficient e.g. in radially successive parking rooms, being placed as overlapping layers in direction of height, there will be left a useless space with a view to parking between the parking rooms as is the case with the passage ways in parking houses, the space being totally reserved for elevator and transfer apparatuses. This is why room efficiency in this type of implementations is not at an adequate good level at present, which is why these kinds of systems require disproportionately large ground surface area.

It is an aim of the automatic parking system according to the present invention to achieve a decisive improvement in the problems described above and thus to raise essentially the level of prior art. In order to carry out this aim, the automatic parking system according to the invention is mainly characterized by that at least one parking room belonging thereto is arranged to rotate around a vertical axis on carousel- principle and that one or more sectors in the parking levels of the parking room/rooms and/or one or more access and/or exit terminals is/are provided with a lift and/or a horizontal conveyor. As the most important advantage of the automatic parking system according to the invention may be mentioned the efficiency regarding the maximum amount of parking spaces/m ² enabled by the same, in which connection it is furthermore possible to minimize vehicle transfer operations by exploiting in the parking rooms a suitable amount of lifts and/or horizontal conveyors in proportion to the total capacity of the parking system. The invention enables thus use of fuzzy logic, being as such however common e.g. in elevator applications, in a way that a lift/lifts is/are being moved upward simultaneously when a movable parking room is being rotated on "carousel"-principle, whereby it is furthermore possible to couple fetching of vehicles, existing in the course of a path in the same series of movements in a way that an optimum amount of both parking transfers of vehicles and fetching thereof can be carried out simultaneously. In a parking system according to the invention, it is thus possible to minimize the need for space of elevator and transfer apparatuses thanks to the lifts and horizontal conveyors being efficiently integrated with the parking rooms. Crucial advantages of the parking system according to the invention are thus, in addition to its optimum user friendliness, those advantageous construction costs enabled by the same along with minimum requirements for ground surface area.

Advantageous embodiments of the automatic parking system according to the invention have been presented in the dependent claims related thereto.

In the following description, the invention is illustrated in detail with reference to the appended drawings, in which in figure 1 is shown an advantageous embodiment of the parking system according to the invention when a vehicle being brought for parking is in an access terminal,

in figures 2a and 2b are shown two different stages of the embodiment, shown in figure 1, when the vehicle is being transferred to a free parking sector,

in figures 3a and 3b are shown two different stages of an alternative embodiment with respect to the one shown in figure 1, when a vehicle is being transferred from an access terminal to a free parking sector,

in figure 4 is shown the functioning of the embodiment, shown in figures 3a and 3b, when the vehicle is being transferred to a free parking sector, and

in figures 5a - 5d is shown the functioning of a horizontal conveyor, being applicable for the system according to the invention, when a vehicle is being transferred from a parking sector or an access terminal to a lift or to a horizontal conveyor.

The invention relates to an automatic parking system for vehicles, such as passenger cars or like, which comprises: one or more access and/or exit terminals 1, in which a client leaves his/her vehicle for its automatic parking and/or from which he/she picks up his/her vehicle; a parking room arrangement 2, which comprises one or more radially successive, circumferential parking rooms 2a, 2b, which is/are provided with parking levels 2a' , 2b' in two or more vertically overlapping layers, the parking levels having profitably radially directed parking sectors x for vehicle parking; an elevator arrangement 3 for moving of the vehicles in vertical direction by one or more lifts 3a; a horizontal transfer arrangement 4 for moving of the vehicles horizontally in radial direction by one or more horizontal conveyors 4a; a control and actuator automation 5 in order to perform transferring of vehicles machine-operatedly from an access terminal to a free parking sector xt and from a parking sector xp to an exit terminal; a parking supervision and invoicing automation 6 in order to register/render receipt regarding a parking transaction to a client for picking up of a vehicle and for invoicing for the parking; and a rotating or stationary center part 8 that is empty or in which there has been arranged one/some of the above mentioned operations. At least one parking room 2a of the parking room arrangement is arranged to rotate w around a vertical axis on carousel-principle. Furthermore one or more sectors x' in the parking levels 2a' , 2b' of the parking room/rooms and/or one or more access and/or exit terminals 1 is/are provided with a lift 3a and/or a horizontal conveyor 4a.

Those advantageous embodiments shown in figures 1, 2a, 2b and 3a, 3b and 4 are based on the fact that one or more lifts 3a and/or access and/or exit terminals 1 is/are provided with an integrated horizontal conveyor 4a, which enables transferring of vehicles from whichever parking sector on the parking levels to a lift/terminal or vice versa. Thus e.g. in the embodiment according to figures 1, 2a and 2b, it is possible to transfer a vehicle from an access terminal 1 to a parking room 2b by means of a horizontal conveyor 4a, being integrated with the access terminal 1, or else by a horizontal conveyor, existing in a receipt sector x" in a parking room 2b, and furthermore therefrom to a movable parking room 2a by means of a horizontal conveyor in a lift 3a, 4a, existing in a sector x' thereof.

As an advantageous embodiment of the parking system according to the invention particularly with reference to the embodiment shown in figures 1, 2a and 2b, the movable parking room 2a is provided with one or more lifts 3a, being provided with horizontal conveyors 4a, and correspondingly each parking level 2b' of one or more stationary parking rooms 2b being provided with one or more horizontal conveyors 4a. In case the center part 8 is being used for parking, the lifts 3a and/or horizontal conveyors 4a must be used that open in opposite directions and/or that are capable of transferring vehicles from opposite sides.

Particularly with reference to the embodiment shown in figures 3a, 3b and 4, being an alternative or complementing implementation with respect to the above, also the stationary parking room 2b is provided with one or several lifts 3a, being provided with a horizontal conveyor 4a. In this context the embodiment can be varied furthermore by using as needed e.g. lifts that operate only in a part of the parking levels and horizontal conveyors in the rest of the levels etc.

Furthermore as an advantageous embodiment one or more access and/or exit terminals 1 is/are provided with a turning arrangement 7 in order to aim a nose of a vehicle at an exit direction, which makes easier driving out of the vehicle. Furthermore as an advantageous embodiment in practice in addition to traditional physical parking tickets or instead the same, the parking supervision and invoicing automation 6 is arranged to deliver a parking confirmation to a client electronically, such as by way of a text message. In this kind of an implementation, invoicing of the parking is arranged furthermore advantageously to take place e.g. by a client's telephone subscriber connection.

In order to make the functioning of the parking system faster e.g. in this kind of an implementation, a client' s request for getting a vehicle into an exit terminal is arranged advantageously to be transmitted electronically, such as by responding to a parking confirmation text message being sent to the client earlier by the supervision and invoicing automation 6. In this case the client is able to "order" his/her car into a terminal before entering it, so that the car is already in the terminal when he/she enters the same.

Particularly with reference to the appended drawings, an access or an exit terminal 1 is arranged on an outer periphery of a building comprising the parking system, in which case according to figures 1, 2a and 2b, the parking sectors x' on the parking levels 2b' of an outer stationary parking room 2b are provided with one or more horizontal conveyors 4a, whereby an inner movable parking room 2a is provided with one or more lifts having horizontal conveyors 3a, 4a. Alternatively, as shown in figures 3a, 3b and 4, the outer movable parking room 2a is provided with lifts 3a having horizontal conveyors 4a, whereby the parking levels 2b' of the inner stationary parking room are provided with horizontal conveyors 4a and/or lifts 3a.

In case an access or an exit terminal 1 is arranged alternatively on an inner periphery of the parking system, an inner parking room 2a/2b and/or the center part 8 is/are provided advantageously with one or more lifts 3a having horizontal conveyors 4a.

With reference to figures 5a - 5d, as an advantageous embodiment the horizontal conveyor 4a consists of telescope arm parts 4al and gripping parts 4a2. The telescope arm parts "get discharged" out from a lift or a horizontal conveyor sector according to figures 5a and 5b, in which case they get opened e.g. outside the wheels of a car to be transferred, whereafter the gripping parts 2 get fastened e.g. by so called lifting pins to the car wheels and lift the car upward by the tire treads. The gripping parts may also get placed below a car's shafts and lift the car upward by its shafts. After that, the telescope arm parts 4al transfer the car when the arms are withdrawn, according to figures 5c and 5d, into a lift or onto a horizontal conveyor. It is naturally possible to use in this context also other type of horizontal conveyor solutions that exist already.

Furthermore as an advantageous embodiment of the parking system according to the invention, the center part 8 thereof is provided with accessory or auxiliary operations 9 of the system, such as service rooms, a stairway, a passenger lift, a HPA-conditioning central, a reserve power central, an ADP-central/control room and/or like.

It is clear that the invention is not limited to the embodiments shown or described above, but it can be modified within the basic idea of the invention in very many ways. It is thus first of all clear that a parking system according to the invention, being e.g. of the type presented above or having even more radially existing zones than described above, such as having e.g. four or five zones and in which at least every other parking room rotates on "carousel"-principle, can be carried out partly or in its entirety by structures existing underground or by structures existing on the earth in a way that one layer is reserved partly or totally for access and exit terminals. It is also possible to arrange the accessory or auxiliary operations of the parking system in separate rooms for the same. Furthermore in a parking system according to the invention it is possible to exploit e.g. monitoring arrangements in the parking rooms or terminals, such as movement, shape and/or temperature detectors and/or video monitoring about activities or the like not related to the parking system operations in order to give an alarm in a control center. It is also possible to provide the parking system in addition to ordinary sprinkler arrangements e.g. with technical monitoring arrangements in order to enable and when needed register conditions of electric, pressure medium operated and/or hydraulic operations and actuators in real time. On the other hand, it is also possible to couple several parking system entireties as described above together with each other in a centralized controlled manner. It is furthermore possible to place a lift arrangement or stairway and a separate load or passenger lift for maintenance personnel in the center part of the parking system or outside the structures thereof. Particularly, when the parking room arrangement consists of merely one movable parking room, it is also possible to use one or when needed more lift operated access and/or exit terminals etc. When the parking system is based on the idea, that there aren't any people in the parking rooms, it is possible to exploit in the connection therewith e.g. a compartmentational fire prevention arrangement that removes oxygen. Furthermore it is naturally advantageous to provide the parking system according to the invention with a reserve power arrangement, such as e.g. with one or more aggregates, in order to make sure undisturbed functioning of the system in case of interruption of supply current.