Different Ways to Control Car Parking

Parking a car can be a troublesome task in many public places like malls, exhibitions etc. Car parking lots in buildings are usually managed manually on the space available.  Moreover managing the whole parking system manually is quite a tough task as it involves managing spaces for the new vehicles, adjusting the places for the already parked ones.

For an easy and convenient way of parking, many places have come up with automatic parking systems which allow for automatic allocation of parking space to the cars. Nowadays, advanced system is now giving way to automated car parking systems, which are cost-effective and also reduces car waiting time.

Here are two ways to maintain an automatic system of car parking

Using a Photo Sensor Arrangement Technique

The basic idea involves sensing the arrival of a new vehicle and accordingly opens the entry boom to allow the car to be parked in that particular space. Incase of the already parked car leaving the space, the controller accordingly opens the entry boom to allow the car to leave the allotted space and accordingly close the boom until a new car arrives.

In this automatic car parking control circuit design we used a photo interruption, which is act as sensor. And a microcontroller is programmed with commands to rotate motor from input to output with the help of driver IC to control the entry boom by rotating in clockwise and anti clockwise. Motor driver IC L293d is used for the motor while a 16 X2 line LCD display gives the status.

The system involves allocation of parking space to a limited number of cars. The counter operation is carried out by the controller and the count is effectively displayed on the LCD interfaced to the microcontroller, which is the controller in this case.

Working of the system involves using one photo sensor arrangement to sense the arrival of a new car and accordingly give input to the microcontroller to give appropriate pulses to the motor driver to make the motor rotate in a direction so as to open the entry boom.

As the car approaches towards the available space, it passes through another photo sensor arrangement, which gives according input to the microcontroller to give appropriate input to the motor driver to rotate the motor in a direction so as to close the entry boom. Thus the entry gate opens on entry of each new arrival and closes once the car gets its parking space.

The whole parking gate closes completely once the number of cars parked reaches the given limit.

Automatic Car Parking System Circuit Diagram

Standard power supply of 12 volt DC and 5 volt through a regulator are made from a step down transformer along with a bridge rectifier and filter capacitor.

The Basic Components Involved are:

• A DC power supply circuit consisting of an arrangement of step down transformers, bridge rectifier circuit, capacitors as filters and IC 7805 as regulator to get the required DC input
• A Microcontroller 8051 which acts as a controller
• A LCD interfaced to the Microcontroller to provide the required display.
• A Crystal circuit connected to the Microcontroller to provide the clock input.
• A couple of phototransistor – IRLED arrangement which acts as sensors.
• A motor driver IC L293D to control the rotation of motors.
• An actuator in form of a motor to control the opening and closing of the entry boom.

RFID Based Car Parking System

RFID based paid car parking system uses a microcontroller (MC) with a sensing circuits for monitoring entry and exit of the cars. The car holders enter into parking place only when RFID card is swiped. The RFID card generally contains the The money in the card immediately gets reduced by showing the accessible number of parking on the LCD display. For loading the amount 2 push buttons are used SW1 for Rs500 and SW2 for 300. Example is shown for 2 cards but it can be extended to many numbers.

Now let us once look at the circuit diagram of RFID based paid car parking system

RFID Based Paid Car Parking System Circuit Diagram

Motor driver IC L293d operates the entry and exit boom motors operating clockwise and anticlockwise for opening and closing. A buzzer sound comes while the card is swiped. Upon every entry of a car the parking availability gets reduced by one number while every exit the number increases. A standard power supply is used.  We used a 16×2 LCD display to display the status.

Standard power supply of 12 volt DC and 5 volt through a regulator are made from a step down transformer along with a bridge rectifier and filter capacitor.

Working of the System

The system consists of a sensing arrangement to sense the arrival and departure of cars in the parking lot. The RFID card of each user is used to allow access to the car to enter the parking lot. The photo sensor arrangement consisting of the IR LED and the phototransistor sense the arrival of the car towards the parking space and the Microcontroller automatically allots the parking space. The RFID card is swiped using a RFID reader and the microcontroller after getting input from the reader, deducts the parking amount from the amount stored in the card. As a car approaches towards the entry gate, there is an interruption for the light from IR LED and the phototransistor stops conducting, causing a high logic from the output of the receiver to the connected pin of the microcontroller. It accordingly gives required signals to the motor driver to make the motor rotate in a direction so as to open the Gate. This happens after the RFID card is swiped and the parking amount is deducted. The Microcontroller accordingly reduces the available parking space. Upon exit of the car, as the car approaches the other pair of IR LED – Phototransistor, the interruption causes a logic high signal to the connected pin of the microcontroller and the motor driver gets proper signal to cause the motor associated with the exit gate, to rotate in a direction so as to open the gate, to allow the cars to exit from the parking space. The Microcontroller accordingly increases the parking space. The Microcontroller is also interfaced with a LCD display which indicates the status of the card and the parking space available.

Now you have an idea about the different ways to control the car parking if you have any queries on this topic or on the electriacal and electronic projects leave the comments below.