Autonomous fleet parking has all the 3D density advantages of robot parking structures[1], but at dumb concrete prices. There's no aisle because there's no "random access" of a particular vehicle. No extra headroom (because they're identical) extra width (because they're precise), ventilation (because they're electric), or even lights. It's the best of both worlds.<p>Where land is cheap, simply drive the cars along a space-filling curve in a parking lot. One possible path is a double-spiral. Picture these lines[2] as the curb (except there's no curb, or even painted lines).<p>The spiral path is simple enough to calculate. One can rotate the whole spiral as viewed from above, growing and shrinking it and "wear leveling" across the entire paved surface. And the technique should generalize to any shape parking lot.<p>I expect writhing double-headed masses of autonomous cars near urban centers soon.<p>This design eliminates entirely any 3D architecture, at the small expense of some wasted space in the center determined by the turning radius[3].<p>Anyone know the most efficient shape would be in 3D (geometrically and structurally)? A helix is the obvious extrapolation, but I'm not convinced it's optimal.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_parking_system</a><p>[2] <a href="https://openclipart.org/detail/216988/double-linear-spiral" rel="nofollow">https://openclipart.org/detail/216988/double-linear-spiral</a><p>[3] edit: now that I think about it, you can park cars there too