Smart Car parking system

Introduction

Drivers searching for parking in urban areas is estimated to be responsible for about 30% of traffic congestion. Urban Planners have tried to match parking supply to growing demand for parking spaces. Even after increasing the number of parking spaces, the problem wasn’t solved. New approaches using smart parking systems look to provide a more balanced view of parking that better manages the relationship between supply and demand. Therefore, making a correct data acquisition system for car parking system is a necessary evil in the coming times. In future hopefully more and more smart parking systems can reduce the traffic congestion and provide an efficient way for drivers.

Literature Review

With the increasing number of cars in Bhutan, it has become very difficult for drivers to find a parking space especially in core areas of urban towns in Bhutan. Although the government established multilevel parking systems and many underground parking areas however it was concluded that it only increased the number parking spaces but the congestion problem was not solved. However, if the drivers knew the availability of parking spaces in the multilevel parking areas, it could have help drivers not only find the parking but also save the drivers time and cost of fuel.

Problem Statement:

In this modern world, there is an ever-increasing number of vehicles. More vehicles are leading to problem such as difficulty to find parking space. Even in Bhutan many multilevel parking systems were constructed, however this multilevel parking doesn’t contain features like automatic gate, checking number of cars parked. Hence to increase the efficiency of such multilevel parking system, our group thought of finding a solution to this problem.

Aim:

1. a parking system to reduce time of the driver and its passengers

2. To increase the efficiency of the current parking system

Objective:

1. To create an efficient parking system and reduce its cost

2. To learn more about sensors and transducers, and implement it in real life

3. To get familiarize with microcontroller (Arduino Uno) and its software

Solution:

After brainstorming the solutions, our group made a proposal to solve the issue of parking system by using Ultrasonic sensor, LCD display, Arduino. We have come up with a data acquisition system in which the Ultrasonic sensor detects the distance of the incoming and outgoing cars. The data of the incoming and outgoing cars are sent to the microcontroller which then checks the availability of car space after checking the availability of the parking the microcontroller commands the lcd to display the information.

Methodology

Working

We made use of Ultrasonic sensors to detect the no. of parking slots. The system automatically detects whether the parking slots are empty or not. If the slot is empty then the vehicles are allowed to enter else the entrance is blocked in case the parking is full. For example, if there are five parking slots and two cars are parked then the sensor detects the no of slots remaining and display on the LCD showing “Welcome, three slots empty”. And if all the slots are occupied then the LCD displays “Sorry, parking full”.

Why ultrasonic sensor was used?
First after brainstorming the ideas our group thought of using IR sensor. However due to unavailability of IR sensors we have planned to try with ultrasonic sensors (new concept).

Components Required:

1. Arduino UNO Board and its USB cables-1 number

2. Ultrasonic Sensor – 1 number

3. Jumper wires (male to male and male to female) – APR

4. 16×2 LCD with I2C module-1number

Circuit Connection

Output/Limitations

The mini-project on smart car wasn’t that successful, it could only read the incoming and outgoing cars and many a times a single car was taken as two cars and that was the limitations of the project. It read data continuously and therefore we couldn’t find a solution to this problem

The mini-project on smart car parking system could have been better(accurate)

1. If we had not failed in the software part. We had tried using different timing for the senor to trigger but however it wasn’t accurate enough. We have tried with 5 different ranges of time however we were not successful in finding the accurate timing.

2. Ultrasonic sensors were best fit for ranging measurement however we used it as a proximity sensor and therefore our projects weren’t that successful. From this project, we knew that IR sensors were best for proximity ranging.

3. We used only one ultrasonic sensor and therefore we failed to produce output when one car enters and the other leaves the parking together. To solve this issue, we could have used two ultrasonic sensors for the parking system. For entry we could use one ultrasonic sensor and one for exit.

Annexure

Model Images

Total Cost

sl.no	Item	Cost(Nu)
1	Sensor(Ultrasonic sensor)	300
2	Lcd with i2c module	499
3	Jumper wires, Breadboard	399
4	Other miscellaneous items	400
5	Total Cost	1598

Conclusion

This project detects the number of cars in the parking and helps the drivers to find parking space in unfamiliar city. The test results show that the performance of the Arduino UNO based system can effectively satisfy the needs and requirements of existing car parking hassles thereby minimizing the time consumed to find vacant parking lot and real time information rendering. This smart parking system provides better performance, low cost and efficient large scale parking system. It also eliminates unnecessary travelling of vehicles across the filled parking slots in a city. From this we proved that ultrasonic sensors can also be used if IR proximity sensors are not available, however its efficiency decreases. This project can be implemented in all those multilevel parking present in Bhutan. However, if ultrasonic sensor is replaced by IR sensor, then the efficiency would have increased drastically

FAQ

How does ultrasonic sensor work?

On what principle is your project?

What happens if one cars enter and other leaves simultaneously

How can ] the project be more efficient?

How does IR sensoe make the project more efficient?

What does serial.begin command in the code mean?

What language is used for programming?

What is the meaning of 16x2 LCD?

why is i2c module used?

what is the name of the use cable used?

Does arduino store memory,if yes where does it store?

What does that red button the arduino do?

How is this car parking system smart?

Posted in arduino