1.1 Introduction
IOT Based Smart Parking System is an automatic system which delivers data processing in very high speed in systematic manner. Parking is a growing need of the time. Development of this system is very useful in this area of field. IOT Based Smart Parking System for managing the records of the incoming and outgoing vehicles in an parking house. It’s an easy for Admin to retrieve the data if the vehicle has been visited through number he can get that data. The concept of Internet of Things (IoT) started with things with identity communication devices. The devices could be tracked, controlled or monitored using remote computers connected through Internet. Consistent efforts are being made in the field of IoT in order to maximize the productivity and reliability of urban infrastructure. Problems such as, traffic congestion, limited car parking facilities and road safety are being addressed by IoT. It provides a vision where things become smart and behave alive through sensing, computing and communicating by embedded small devices which interact with remote objects or persons through connectivity (Fox, 2012).
As a prelude to other parts of this study, this chapter will discuss the background upon which this study was initiated, the statement of problems that led to this study, the Aim and Objectives of the study. Others are Significance of the study, Scope of work, Limitations of the Study and Definition of technical terms.
1.2 Background of Study
Smart Parking System is a mechanical system designed to minimize the area and/or volume required for parking cars. Like a multi-story parking garage, an APS provides parking for cars on multiple levels stacked vertically to maximize the number of parking spaces while minimizing land usage. The CPS, however, utilizes a mechanical system to transport cars to and from parking spaces (rather than the driver) in order to eliminate much of the space wasted in a multi-story parking garage (Patrascu, 2010).
The smart parking system that we propose is implemented using a mobile application that is connected to the cloud. The system helps a user know the availability of parking spaces on a real time basis. The rest of the paper is organized as follows: Section II talks about the factors responsible of Cloud-IoT integration. In this IOT Based Smart Parking System, a database lists the plate numbers of users and records the duration of their use of the parking lot. An Optical Character Recognition (OCR) system is also implemented to recognize the plate numbers of the users as they enter the parking lot (Ayer et al.; Sulaiman et al., 2013). Though this limits the use of the parking lot, it increases the security of the lot which has been deemed as a reasonable trade-off.
The challenges encountered that led to the execution of the research work is that, the traffic issues due to illegal parking in the vicinity. IOT Based Smart Parking System offers a solution to both - the parking lot owner and the vehicle owner as it facilitates hassle free vehicles parking and reduces parking management costs. Parking control system has been generated in such a way that it is filled with many secure devices such as, parking control gates, toll gates, time and attendance machine, car counting system etc. These features are hereby very necessary nowadays to secure cars and also to evaluate the fee structure for every vehicles entry and exit.
1.3 Statement of Problem
Investigation revealed that the problems of the existing IOT Based Smart Parking System which are stated as follows;
- Traffic issues due to illegal parking in the vicinity.
- Poor maintain listing of cars within the parking lot.
- The manual system cannot track the entry and exit of cars.
- Inaccurate estimation of cost of per vehicle according to their time consumption.
1.4 Aim and Objectives of the Study
The aim of the study is to design and implement an IOT Based Smart Parking System/ In achieving this aim, the following specific objectives were laid out as follows to develop an application software that will:
- Determine the cost of per vehicle according to their time consumption;
- Track the entry and exit of cars;
- Determine if the parking lot is full or not;
- Maintain a listing of cars within the parking lot;
- Enables the time management and control of vehicles using number plate recognition.
1.5 Significance of Study
The proposed IOT Based Smart Parking solution will significantly offer benefit to both the user and the parking lot owner as it helps in reducing traffic by enhancing user experience. This system supports various parking applications that can easily handle and organize the data of vehicles. To rectify the complications of parking security, our IOT Based Smart Parking System allows recognizing and validating the automobiles at both entry and exiting points.
This study will be of immense benefit to other researchers who intend to know more on this study and can also be used by non-researchers to build more on their research work. This study contributes to knowledge and could serve as a guide for other study.
1.6 Scope of Study
The scope of the research is focused on the Design and Implementation of an Internet of Things (IOT) Based Smart Parking System.
1.7 Limitations of the Study
During the course of this study, many things militated against its completion, some of which are:
- Time Constraint: The time frame given to accomplish this project was very short due to school academic calendar and it was carried out under pressure which made the researcher not to implement some necessary features.
- Research material: availability of research material is a major setback to the scope of the study.
- Frequent power failure: This made the researcher append more money on fuel to ensure sustainable power.
- Financial Constraint: Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet).
1.8 Definition of Terms
Smart Parking: is an automatic system which delivers data processing in very high speed in systematic manner.
Registration: This is a one-off process of collecting a detailed data about a vehicle and its owner for identification.
