Car Parking project with arduino

What is the Automatic Vertical Car Parking project with Arduino?

This project deals with the manufacture of a prototype of an Automatic Vertical Car Parking System. This has a vertical structure supporting a car cradle hanging on the vertical chain conveyor. Car entry & exit are from ground level. Any car can be parked or retrieved independently without disturbing other cars. The automatic vertical car parking system was invented since the production of cars increased. A smart parking system is designed to provide effective management of car parking. The application of this system can be, for example, at the shopping malls where parking is a major issue. The entire process is controlled on an ARDUINO.

Automatic Vertical Car Parking System

The design methodology of our project is defined using the simplest rendition of the system. It is called the waterfall model. The waterfall model is a sequential flow of the process in which development is seen as flowing steadily downwards (like a waterfall) through the phases of design, implementation, and testing (validation). Below is the "waterfall model".

Car Parking System design

Designing the technical architecture by choosing amongst the architectural designs of hardware and software that will best suit the system and future needs. The system design of our system consists of two parts, one is control circuitry and the other is a mechanical model. These two are combined to form an automatic vertical car parking system with a rotating mechanism.

Automatic Car Parking Control Circuit

The control circuitry is composed of individual electronic components, such as Arduino mega, IR sensor, fingerprint sensor, servo motor, and LCD, working together to perform specific tasks.

The above diagram of the system is developed using msvisio, which describes the connectivity of different modules with Arduino mega 2560. Arduino Mega is the main part of the system, provides an interface to other components. It is programmed using the Arduino software IDE (1.6.x). 

An IR (Infrared sensor) is one of the basic and most commonly used sensors. In our system, the IR sensor is interfaced with Arduino and functions to detect the presence of a vehicle. The fingerprint sensor DFROBOT SENO188 is the optical sensor and is part of the system as shown in the above diagram. The fingerprint sensor gets power when interfaced with Arduino and get the fingerprint. The system uses motor interfacing with Arduino, to rotate the pallets to get the car to be parked. The system also uses an LCD display for the interaction with the user, like interaction for entering information to the fingerprint module.

Block diagram

Hardware list

• Arduino Mega 2560
• DFROBOT SENO188
• LCD 20x4 With i2C
• Stepper Motor
• IR proximity Sensor
• Buck converter
• Mechanical Structure

Hardware Implementation

Connection of IR sensor with Arduino mega2560

• The Vcc pin of the IR sensor to the 3.3v of the Arduino Mega 2560
• The GND pin of the IR sensor to the Gnd of the Arduino Mega 2560
•  The Out pin of the IR sensor to the A0(analog pin) of the Arduino Mega 2560

Connection of robot SENO188 to Arduino mega 2560

• The GND pin of the fingerprint sensor to the Gnd of the Arduino Mega 2560
• The Vcc pin of the fingerprint sensor to the 5v of the Arduino Mega 2560
• The Rx pin can be connected to pin 11 of the Arduino Mega 2560.
• The Tx pin can be connected to the pin 10 of the Arduino Mega 256

Connection of Stepper motor with Arduino

• Connect the motor driver pin ENA- DIR- PUL- connect to Arduino pin GND.
• Connect the Moter driver pin ENA+ connect to Arduino pin enable 2
• Connect the motor driver pin DIR+ connect to Arduino pin enable 3
• Connect the motor driver pin PUL+ connect to Arduino pin enable 4
• Stepper motor green wire connects to driver pin B-
• Stepper motor blue wire connects to driver pin B+
• Stepper motor yellow wire connects to driver pin A-
• Stepper motor brown wire connects to driver pin A+
• Stepper motor driver GND or VCC PIN used for supply.

Connection of LCD with Arduino mega 2560

• In this circuit, the LCD terminals are connected to the Arduino pins. Connect the outer two terminals of the potentiometer to 5Volts Dc and ground, and the middle terminal to pin 3 of LCD. Rotating the potentiometer controls the brightness of the LCD backlight. The LCD backlight pins are connected to 5V and ground.
• Connect DB4, DB5, DB6, DB7, RS, and EN with the pin no. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 of Arduino.

Automatic Vertical Car Parking System Testing

After the electrical circuit is completed, it has been installed in a small model to simulate the real parking and to test the electrical circuit and assure its efficiency and apply the possible conditions. The main principle of the automatic parking system is to place the car on the lift and retrieve the car from the lift using motors.

There is one pallet for each parking space. When the car is placed on the lift, the IR sensor Detect the presence of the car in the ground lift, if the car is properly parked, then the command goes to the fingerprint module, via Arduino and LCD shows that "the car is properly parked", then the system will ready to get the fingerprint, the driver has to give his biometric identity to the fingerprint sensor and the sensor stores his biometric identity. The fingerprint sensor controls the motor. The pallet movement of parking is dependent on the movement of the motor shaft. The motor starts to run and also gets rotate, all pallets rotate in the required direction, and the vehicle is automatically parked by the system rotating to lift the parked car away from the bottom central position.

When the user comes to retrieve the car, he has to give his fingerprint verification to the fingerprint sensor. If the fingerprint is the same, the sensor identifies it and the servo motor also gets rotate, all pallets rotate in the required direction, where the system retrieves it from the nearest direction to save time and the driver can retrieve the car. If fingerprints do not match, a message is sent as ―Not Matched‖ shown on the screen of LCD. The sensor does not allow the motor to rotate in any direction in the case of unmatched fingerprint identity

Advantages of Vertical Car Parking System

• Parking twice the number of cars in the same space as a conventional garage.
• Lower operation costs and overhead. 
• Traditional parking garages are dark scary places, in the proposed system the driver and passengers are not allowed into the parking area resulting in.
• No car accidents.
• Convenience: Ground level easy access.
• No browsing for free park space.
• No searching for your car. 
• No waiting in traffic to clear the parking ramp, the driver can relax while the car
• is being retrieved and hence this time can be used more productively. 
• Aesthetics and Design: Automated Parking can be customized to accommodate
• any building style above or underground to perfectly fit its environment. 
• Proven technology: This technology has been widely used for over 20 Years in
• Europe, the United States, and Asia. There are over 5.000 parking systems
• presently in use worldwide.

Conclusion

The Automated Vertical Car Parking System had successfully been designed and developed. The mechanical model has been designed the software, as well as the control circuit, has been implemented successfully. It demonstrates the working of the planned automated car parking system. The control strategy for the traffic flow to the smart car parking system was designed using Arduino. A demonstration has been done for 6 cars. Servo motor is used to provide movements to transport the vehicle in the parking system.