ISSN (Online) 2394-2320

International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering

(IJERCSE)
Vol 5, Issue 6, June 2018

Design and Implementation of a Smart Parking

System using IoT Technology
[1]
Narayana Swamy J C, [2] Sahana Satyanarayana, [3] Lokesh Babu S, [4] Trishank Sharma
[1][2][3][4]
Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering, Bangalore Institute of Technology,
Bengaluru, Karnataka
Abstract- With the rapid increase in the number of vehicles in urban areas, drivers waste a lot of time and fuel to find an
appropriate parking spot in a commercial parking lot. Moreover, approximately 30% of urban congestion is created by drivers
cruising for packing space. This paper aims at providing a low-cost solution to this problem by creating a Smart Parking Space
using the technology of IoT and an inexpensive processor - NodeMCU. This amalgamation of embedded systems, connectivity and
application will provide the user with the information of available parking spaces in a parking lot and also allows the user to
reserve a parking space in the lot within the timestamp over the MQTT protocol. A Smart Parking Technology, as such, will help
optimize space usage, improve the efficiency of the parking operations and help the smoother flow of vehicles. Further, this paper
proposes a completely automated and smart parking space without much human intervention by including fire alarms,
temperature and humidity sensors, water sensors for avoiding waterlogging and light sensors for automatic control of lights. On
the whole, this paper focuses on designing smart parking system, beneficial to both the users and provider in terms of time, fuel
and infrastructure.

Index Terms: - NodeMCU, smart-parking, IoT, fuel wastage.

well as notify the security personnel in case of emergency

I. INTRODUCTION such as water leakage, fire, etc. The rest of the paper is
Internet of Things (IoT) is an ecosystem of physical devices organized as follows. The section II provides an overview of
that leverages the power of embedded systems, connectivity the related work done in the field of Smart Parking System.
and software application to create an efficient, economic The section III elucidates the system design and the section
and automated society. With the advent of communication IV proposes a mathematical model for the proposed design.
technology, connectivity is simplified and thus, IoT is The section V discusses the implementation and working of
gaining more importance day-by-day. This rapid the system. Section VI concludes the paper and section VII
development has engendered an increasing research in the gives the future scope.
field of IoT. One such exciting area of application of IoT is
Smart Parking System. Traffic congestion has become one II. RELATED WORK
of the major problems in urban areas. It is characterized by
excess fuel consumption, longer trip times, slower speeds, The parking system which exists today differs in vast
and increased vehicular queueing. This is a serious proportions from the traditional parking systems. The
challenge for city planners, architects, and building owners. flexibility provided to users has increased tremendously as
To resolve this, many IoT based Smart Parking Systems they can choose their desired slots to park their vehicles
were proposed. But, those were found to be more expensive In [1], the paper focuses on the key issues of Space
when they had to be deployed. To make the Smart Parking Optimisation. The System architecture was developed with
System more economical and available to everyone, an IR sensor network and MCU. This architecture manages the
innovative, organized and automated parking system is traffic of the parking area by finding the shortest distance to
presented. The proposed model uses an inexpensive park the vehicle and therefore helps the users to find the
processor, NodeMCU to gather data from each parking slot available parking space.
and transmit it to the Wise3 IoT Platform, from where the In [2], the authors mentioned about a smart, automated
application derives each user information. Further, this parking system which helps in delaying the car parking
project augments the existing Smart Parking System with difficulties at various places such as railway stations, malls
maintenance and security features such as fire alarms, etc. that many people visit with their own vehicles. The
waterlogging indicators, etc. All buildings including malls, drivers use the system to know the availability of slots of the
hospitals, government buildings, etc. can implement this parking area via website. Drivers also have the authority to
technology. Consequently, this project is an on-site choose or give their own slots in parking. The various
deployment of an IoT module that is used to monitor and reports of various kinds of management could be improved.
signalize the state of availability of each parking space as

All Rights Reserved © 2018 IJERCSE 35

 ISSN (Online) 2394-2320

International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering

(IJERCSE)
Vol 5, Issue 6, June 2018

Finally, lesser time of the car owner was an added raindrop sensor has been employed. The raindrop sensor
advantage. detects the waterlogging in the parking slot.
In [3], the design of the smart parking system was • User identification: The users are identified via
implemented using supported hardware’s based on iot. RFID cards, provided to each user on subscription to the
These included raspberry pi, Arduino boards etc. Here the Smart Parking System. When the RFID card is placed on an
main focus is on less power consumption and more power EM-18 RFID reader, the RFID reader generates a 12-digit
device. Raspberry pi plays the role of a microcontroller. hexadecimal code, unique for each user. The RFID reader,
NOOBS installer is installed on the microcontroller. The operating at 125kHz, sends the user ID to the NodeMCU on
installer internally comprises of various supportable the UART communication pin.
operating systems such as Mac os, tiny os, Raspbian os etc. • Slot status indicators: The status of each slot,
these operating systems consume less power. whether occupied or free or waterlogged is indicated with
In [4], the authors have proposed that they have to book the the help of LEDs placed for each parking slot. The driver
parking slot beforehand and then park their vehicle. Here, can look at the LED of each parking slot in the parking
we are providing the facility for both the new users and pre- space to find the status of the slot so that he/she can easily
registered users. In [5], a smart parking system has been decide whether to drive towards that slot or not. If the LED
mentioned for commercial stretch in cities and which can be glowing is red in color, then it indicates that the slot is
applied using different database storage systems like cloud, reserved or occupied. If the LED glowing is green in color,
MySQL, python etc. wherein the vehicle is guided to the then it indicates that the slot is free to book or occupy. If
parking lot using the data which has been collected by the LED glowing is blue in color, then it indicates that there
sensors, image detectors etc. which is then processed and is waterlogging in the slot.
further sent to the mobile of the user. • Maintenance devices: The maintenance devices
used in the proposed parking space comprise of the
III. SYSTEM DESIGN submersible water pump, buzzer, LEDs for automatic
lighting and to indicate waterlogging. The output of the
A high level description diagram of the proposed Smart sensors are used to control these devices. If MQ 135 detects
Parking System is shown in Figure 1. The diagram a considerable smoke density, the submersible water pump
illustrates the implementation of the system in a parking placed in a water tub will be switched on to put off the fire.
space with two lanes A and B with each lane consisting of 2 The buzzer is used as an fire alarm to alert everyone in the
slots each. The system, composed of various interacting parking space about the fire that broke out in the parking
components, caters to the smart parking, safety and space. Automatic lighting is proposed with the intention of
maintenance concerns of the user/driver and system owner. saving power, when the natural light is sufficient enough to
The diagram also gives the detailing of connectivity provide the visibility in the parking space, LEDs are
established between various components. The major switched OFF and when the LDR senses poor visibility (less
components that comprise the system are discussed below: light) in the parking space, the LEDs are switched ON. As
• Sensors for parking and maintenance: Infrared (IR) discussed above, if there is waterlogging in the slot, the slot
sensors are placed in each parking slot to determine whether status will be changed with the indication of blue LED.
the particular parking slot is occupied or not. The sensors • Processing unit: The processing hardware of the
for maintenance include DHT11, MQ-135, LDR (Light- proposed model is the NodeMCU (Node Microcontroller
dependent resistor) module, and FC-37 raindrop sensor. Unit). It comprises the firmware which runs on the ESP8266
DHT11 (Digital Humidity and Temperature sensor) is used Wi-Fi SoC from Espressif Systems, and hardware which is
to sense the humidity and temperature of the parking space. based on the ESP-12 module [6]. It is comparatively an
MQ-135, which is a gas sensor used to detect smoke in the inexpensive microcontroller; the ESP8266 is a low-cost Wi-
parking space with the intention of alleviating the fire Fi microchip with full TCP/IP stack. It supports the IEEE
hazards in the parking space. LDR module is used for 802.11b/g/n agreement and operates in the 2.4 GHz ISM
automatic switching of lights, based on the natural light frequency band. NodeMCU provides access to the GPIO
available in the parking space to ON or OFF, if the natural (General Purpose Input/Output) to which the sensors and
light in the parking space is sufficient, then the LED lighting devices are connected. The RFID is connected to the UART
need not be used which saves power and if the natural light module on the NodeMCU. The NodeMCU gathers all the
does not give enough visibility in the parking space, then the data from the sensor and connects to a nearby access point
LED lighting is used. Waterlogging is highly undesirable in to upload the sensor data in the form of JSON to the Wise3
the parking space. In order to detect this condition, a IoT Platform over the Mosquito MQTT broker. The

All Rights Reserved © 2018 IJERCSE 36

 ISSN (Online) 2394-2320

International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering

(IJERCSE)
Vol 5, Issue 6, June 2018

NodeMCU further responds to the remote procedure calls; Figure 1: High-level description diagram of the proposed
any call back made on the MQTT topic it has subscribed to model
will be taken care by the NodeMCU, say, switching on the
slot status indicator LED if the available slot is booked. The IV. MATHEMATICAL MODELING OF THE
communication between the NodeMCU and the Wise3 IoT PROPOSED SYSTEM
platform is governed by the MQTT protocol, where the
broker being Eclipse Mosquito and the NodeMCU and the In this section, we propose a mathematical model of our
Wise3 IoT platform are the Clients in the proposed system. Smart Parking System. The interplay of multiple factors
• Wise 3 IoT platform: The Wise3 IoT Platform has determines the behaviour of the system. In order to analyse
the provision of creating dashboards with the help of the system in a fine-grained fashion, we are leveraging the
widgets. Each dashboard is derived from a device where the knowledge of Mathematics and representing the system
sensor data is published by the user and the responses for using mathematical expressions and functions. Table 1
remote procedure calls are received; each device has its own depicts the notations and Table 2 depicts the functions used
access token to differentiate one device from the other. Each in proposing mathematical model.
sensor data telemetry can be taken as a widget and displayed
on the dashboard for better understanding of the reader. For Ti entry, Ti exit,Pi, N and S are the parameters subject to change
the users to reserve a parking slot online, the dashboard by driver Di’s [Link] i remains constant for a driver Di.
includes control widgets which initiates a remote procedure
call when an action is performed on the widget. Therefore, Value of OS parameter determines the value of B and W
the system maintenance can get a good picture of the [Link] of OIR parameter determines the value of
maintenance of the parking system by looking into the N and [Link] of ORD parameter determines the value of Sj.
dashboard depicting the sensor data for maintenance. Also,
the user of the Smart Parking System can look into his Sj = -1/0/+1; Status of the jth slot can be either -1 or 0 or +1
dashboard to find and to reserve the slots available. where
• User: Each user of the parking system (or the -1 indicates water logging in the slot (indicator LED is
driver) has to carry the RFID card along with him in order to blue)
use the parking system. The RFID card will be given to the 0 indicates that slot is free to occupy (indicator LED is
user at the time of subscription to the parking system. The green)
user need not reserve a parking space in order to use the +1 indicates that slot is occupied or reserved (indicator LED
parking system; the system is offline compatible with the is red )
RFID card, but the user gets updated on his dashboard about
his entry, exit, bill and time spent irrespective of whether he
is reserving a space or not. Each user is assigned a
dashboard and can be accessed on any device using a web
browser.

All Rights Reserved © 2018 IJERCSE 37

 ISSN (Online) 2394-2320

International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering

(IJERCSE)
Vol 5, Issue 6, June 2018

Table 1: Notations for proposing mathematical model data is collected from sensors and is uploaded to server
through NodeMCU, (ii) User authentication, using RFID the
Sj = WL(ORD) = -1; //has highest priority in assignment system determines whether the user who wants to park is
= IR(OIR) =0/1; //has 2nd highest priority in subscribed or not. (iii) Wise3 IoT Platform, with the help of
assignment user login credentials the user can book, search, cancel what
= R(N) =1; if i < j or N>0 he has booked etc. Each user is given an RFID card along
with the unique login credentials when subscribed to this
Also, N is never less than [Link] i > j or N = 0, then R (0) =” system. The user can use the login credentials to login to the
No available slots” which is not assigned to Sj, but displayed Wise3 website in phone or portable devices and get the
to the user. details on parking slots available, book parking space
Further, online, locations, etc. The system is working 24/7
Pi = C (Rc i, Ti entry, Ti exit,PSM) throughout the year. Data from sensors are collected and by
is the amount paid for parking by Di. using NodeMCU we are uploading it to Wise3 IoT server.
Maintenance action functions, MA (B, W, L) = XM (OS, When the user wants to park, first the RFID swiped should
OL) be validated, upon valid user confirmation he can park the
B = XSB(OS) is the buzzer output function on smoke vehicle in the dedicated parking space provided/selected.
detection.
W= XSW(OS) is the sprinkler action function on smoke
detection.
L= XL(OL) is the automatic lighting function of the parking
space.

Table 2: Functions for proposing mathematical model

Figure 2: Flowchart of the working of the system
V. IMPLEMENTATION & WORKING
The system has very good safety measures included in it for
In Figure 2, we observe the flow of the system. The system cases such as fire accidents. We make use of smoke
is divided into 3 sections (i) Embedded systems, here the detectors for the detection of fire in the parking space and

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 ISSN (Online) 2394-2320

International Journal of Engineering Research in Computer Science and Engineering

(IJERCSE)
Vol 5, Issue 6, June 2018

sprinklers are activated automatically. Buzzers are activated

as alarm during fire. In case of waterlogging, a high priority
message is shown in Wise3 dashboard where the REFERENCES
maintenance staff is notified to attend this issue, at the
parking space a Blue LED is turned ON at the waterlogging 1. Bandu Nandekar, Ranjana Raut, Pravin Dakhole,
spot. High temperature and humidity sensors are used to "Parking System with space modelling to improve parking
regulate the temperature of the space by turning ON the efficiency and parking revenue", International Conference
exhaust fans when required automatically. Lights are turned on Communication
ON automatically. The parking slot is fitted with LED lights Networks (ICCN), 2015.
for easy identification like Green LED for free slot, Red
LED for slot occupied and Blue LED for under maintenance 2. Andrea R Demegillo, John Kerwin D Dizon, Kenneth
(waterlogging). Bryan A Talon, Francis F Balahadia, Orlando M. Lingo,
"Real-time viewing automated parking system", Region 10
VI. CONCLUSION Symposium (TENSYMP), 2016 IEEE.

An efficient, cost-effective and smart parking system has 3. S R Basavaraju, "Automatic Smart parking system using
been designed which provides a viable solution to various Internet of Things", International Journal of Scientific and
problems such as traffic congestion, excessive fuel Research Publications, Volume 5, Issue 12, December 2015,
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as safety, security etc., are taken into account and their
solutions are provided. The parking system can be 4. Abhirup Khanna, Rishi Anand, "IoT based Smart Parking
implemented in almost all urban locations such as railway System”, International Conference on Internet of Things and
stations, police stations, malls etc. The proposed system Applications (IOTA), 2016 .
abolishes the need of unnecessary travelling in parking slots
and hence reduces the time as well as the effective cost. This 5. Dharmini Kanteti, D V S Srikar, T K Ramesh, "Smart
system provides the actual and desired information about the Parking System for commercial stretch in cities",
availability of parking slots in the parking system. Users can International Conference on Communication and Signal
book the available slots through the use of Wise 3 IoT Processing (ICCSP), 2017
platform. This paper desires to improve the parking facilities
of the city, and hence reduce wastage of fuel, reduce traffic 6. [Link]
jams, decrease air pollution and noise pollution thereby
improving quality of life.

VII. FUTURE SCOPE

This parking system can be implemented in all of the major

buildings in the cities such as malls, police stations, post
offices etc. This would help us in reducing and managing
the space congestion and fuel wastage problems which have
become the major problems of the recent era. By including
the smart parking system both the booking of parking space
and the maintenance of parking slots can be managed
through the dashboards provided by the online platform.
Also in future, instead of manually creating dashboards for
users, the entire process of creating a dashboard for the user
can be automated. Further by the use of user friendly mobile
applications the service can be used over smart phone and
other portable smart devices for online booking, slots
availability and many more features, etc.

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