ParcelRestBox: IoT-Based Parcel Receiving Box System Design for Smart City in Malaysia

Online shopping in Malaysia recorded a significant increase annually. The number of online shopping rocketed due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak and movement control order (MCO) enforced by the Malaysian government. The current situation contributes to the volume of the parcel that needs to be delivered by delivery companies in Malaysia. The case of unattended parcel delivery, parcel lost, and failed delivery attempts had caused a lot of trouble to the household and the delivery company. It costs time and money because the household lost their valuable parcel, and the delivery company needs to reschedule the delivery. ParcelRestBox aims to overcome these issues by accepting parcels delivered without requiring the recipient to be present and send a delivery notification to the household to alert parcel delivered. This paper discusses on the design and the development of the ParcelRestBox prototype towards the actual development of this system. The ParcelRestBox development is significant to households or recipients, delivery companies, and property developers. ParcelRestBox consists of a ParcelRestBox device with NodeMCU V3 ESP8266 microcontroller, infrared sensor, and Android mobile application. The Mobile Application Development Life Cycle (MADLC) methodology is adopted as a guideline in the project development. The ParcelRestBox mobile application works as an interface for the recipient to interact with the ParcelRestBox device. Every parcel delivery will be detected by the ParcelRestBox device, and the notification will be sent to ParcelRestBox mobile application to alert the user. Thus, this ParcelRestBox system is beneficial if it can be used by the household or adopted by property developer to equip newly developed property in smart city area in Malaysia.