Parking Lot Skeleton (left), Finished Parking Lot (right)
Hardware Portion
This was the hardware portion of the project. This is essentially the back-end services of our project, which includes the use of the arduino to detect vehicles and parking spot allocations. The hardware interacts with the software in order to display to the customer if they have parked successfully
Parking Lot Skeleton (left), Finished Parking Lot (right)
Each parking spot has a weight sensor which is connected to an LED light which will blink red for 'occupied' and green if that spot is available. It also features an ESP32 camera which the customer uses to display their given QR code in order to gain access to the parking lot
Once at the parking lot entrance, customers will be asked to present a QR code to the esp32-cam. Once our implemented algorithm verifies the QR code, it will trigger the servo motors to start turning 90 degrees in order to allow the car to enter the parking lot. These servos can be depicted in the real world, where gates are used in order to allow vehicles access to certain places.
Each parking spot has a 5kg weight sensor which detects if a vehicle is parked there or not. We decided to use weight sensors, since they are very useful for small parking lots and there is a less chance of error. This is mainly because the weight of a car is very distinct so there is a very low chance, this sensor will detect an object other than a car.
Each of the weight sensors (as mentioned above) is connected to simple led circuit in which if a car is on top of the weight sensor, the led will switch red, otherwise it will light up green for an available parking spot. A simple diagram is shown below to illustrate the connection between the weight sensors and the Leds.
How can you communicate?