IoT-Based Smart Parking Management System Using ESP32 Microcontroller

In recent years, the number of vehicles has increased significantly. As a result, drivers waste a lot of time looking for an open parking spot or queuing to enter one. It leads to fuel waste and raises air pollution at the same time. One solution is to implement an innovative system that provides a comprehensive parking solution. This work focuses on designing a smart parking management system that allows drivers to see the parking slots, then reserve a certain slot before arriving to the parking area. It is a web-based system where the drivers do not have to download any mobile application. Practically, the system implemented ultrasonic sensors to check slot availability. In addition, an indicator is installed at each slot to differentiate the one that is vacant, reserved, and occupied. They are controlled by ESP32 modules, and the data was sent wirelessly by using MQTT protocol. Quantitatively, the ultrasonic sensors are set to have 100 cm of distance as the threshold to differentiate vacant and occupied slots. After experiments, it was found that the sensor has an accuracy of 94.72%. However, there is an approximately 10 seconds of delay since the reservation is made until it can be successfully confirmed by the system. Finally, the system also informs the drivers of how long they have been parking, as well as the parking fee based on the duration of time.