Smart Parking

In semester four, under the programming challenge module we had to do a group project which consist of three members. As the requirement of the project that we were said that the project must contain an embedded system part, a database and a front end (mobile application or web). I along with two of my colleagues decided to solve an important issue in Colombo city which is finding a parking space in a city. So we planned to build a system which can be implemented in parking garage as well as in open parking spaces.

The idea is that users can download our mobile app from the relevant app market. Then they will sign in to the app with their vehicle detail and credit/debit card details. Then whenever they want to visit some place in the city they can look for the nearest available parking space.  Then they can book a parking space for a particular amount of time. Then they will be guided to the parking space. When they arrive to the correct space, the system detects the vehicle and verifies whether it is the person who booked the parking space using image processing. Then when the user finishes his work and leaves the parking space the system charges the user based on the time he parked.

One of the main technical challenges we had is guiding the user to the correct location within the parking garage.  Until they reach the garage we can use GPS to guide them. But when they enter the garage, GPS navigation can’t be used. Because most of the time parking garage are in ground floor or in basement which mean under heavy concrete which prevents satellite signals. So we thought of overcoming that problem, by setting up wifi routers within the garage, So that we can triangulate the user’s position.