Development of Indoor Automatic Parking System Model with Real-time Database

Abstract

With the increasing number of vehicles nowadays, the problem of parking spaces has been
on the rise, especially in major cities. When searching for an empty parking space, it is
usually time consuming for a vehicle’s user as he or she has no prior knowledge on the
actual location of the empty parking space. With the development of the web-based remote
monitoring system to monitor the empty parking spaces, their location and vehicles
information, the problem of parking spaces can be effectively resolved. This paper presents
a research work to develop an Automatic Parking System (APS) model based on sensors
technology to provide useful information to the user, specifically in identifying and
determining the appropriate vehicle parking space. The parking space information can be
monitored in detail to include the locations of available empty parking space at specific
time period, vehicle as well as its owner’s information. Four design concepts were
shortlisted based on a morphological analysis. The selected design Concept 3 is able to
exhibit a three-degree of freedom (3-DOF) movements using a conveyor as well as a rack
and pinion drive system. Radio frequency identification (RFID) sensors were used to detect
the objects in the APS while Arduino microcontroller was chosen and implemented as the
brain of the monitoring system. The internet of things (IoT) was embedded together with
the system to enable the physical object (vehicle) to be connected to the virtual world
(internet). The web-based remote monitoring system prototype was developed and built to
verify the integrity of the system and show the functionality of remote based APS. Through
this design of the APS, useful information such as the available parking spaces, vehicle’s
details and parking duration can be determined and stored in a database.