Automated parking lot management system using embedded robot type smart car based on wireless sensors

As the population of vehicles worldwide continues to increase, more and more parking space is required. And efficient parking management is becoming an important issue. A lot of researches have been done to detect parking lot status, but they usually have limitations including extra sensor devices and hence high cost. In addition, most system is for indoor parking lot because of the management issue. We suggest a fully automated parking lot management system using an embedded robot type smart car that is applicable to any type of parking lots. Smart car intelligently explores the parking lot along parking block lines, judges the route to be taken for itself, classifies the vehicles after detecting them into three types: normally parked vehicles, illegally parked vehicles, and poorly parked vehicles. To implement the system, we used infrared and ultrasonic sensors installed in the smart car. Proposed system makes it possible to build a location-independent, fully automated parking lot management system with low cost.