46
Vehicle Recognition and Information System for Parking Guidance Using Image Processing and Android Application
Maria Ashraf
1*, Ali Akbar Siddiqui
1, Sadaf Salahuddin
1,M. Tahir Qadri
2, Zia Mohi Uddin
31Department of Telecommunication Engineering, Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology
2
Department of Electronic Engineering, Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology
3
Department of Bio-Medical Engineering, Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology
A R T I C LE I N F O AB S T R A C T
*Corresponding Author:
[email protected] DOI:
10.24081/nijesr.2017.2.0009
With an increase of economic behavior and the upgrade of living standard, quantity of personal vehicles are steadily growingbecause of which it become much more harder to find a parking spot in crowded areas or city centers. To tackle this problem, we require an efficient and effective parking which may provide a security for the user’s car as well as save their time. In this paper, we proposed a design of a car parking system based on Android application and image processing. In order to achieve our desired task, we automate the whole system so that the user analyze the parking area over their cell phone using Android App, with it they will find the place where parking is currently available and even the quantity of parking places available, in turn save their time and fuel. They can also book their slot by using the App if it is available.
Identification of a car that was booked using an app is done with the help of Cameras placed at the entrance and the exit through Optical Character Recognition (OCR) algorithm.
Keywords:
Efficient parking system, vehicle recognition, android application, image
processing, parking guidance
I. INTRODUCTION
In past few years, a lot of hard work has been done to set up a method to reduce the parking problem arises due to the huge amount of vehicles, this may also lead to accident and one of the major reason of pollution.
Figure-1: Graphical view of increase in parking time by traveler through years
In Figure-1, we can observe that congestion has steadily been growing over the past few decades, which causes congestion on the road, annoyance, pollution, and time consumption. If we are to visit the city centers like malls or hotels etc. we find it difficult to find parking areas and during the festival time or even on a week end this task seems to be more and more difficult and time consuming. In recent time we have observed a certain boost in the manufacturing of vehicles hence their quantity is increasing fast but there has to be some kind of technology available to tackle this upsurge otherwise the roads will be highly congested due to the lack of adequate parking. One other reason of such inadequate parking is that the person who own the vehicle will try his best to park the car near to the location where they work or came to visit and disregard completely weather the place is right for the
0 20 40 60
1982 1987 1992 1997 2003
delay per peak traveler
year
500,000 to mllion over 1 million
47 parking or not. Security of the vehicle is also a main factor, if we require a slot in the parking area even when we are on the road and miles away from our destination, we need a system which will coordinate with the user to find an adequate parking space in parking plaza
Over the years there are many systems regarding parking problems have been introduced such as
“Intelligent parking space detection system based on image processing” by R.Yusnita Fariza et al.
[1]. Furthermore different algorithm are also proposed such as optical character recognition (OCR) for number plate detection [2-10]. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags are also used in parking system, but they are only limited to the employee of that specific building because only they will possess RFID tag [11]. System based on Cloud for parking guidance are also introduced and implemented [12-18].
Our proposed system the uses of android application to find the availability of slots in area and pre-book the desirable slot if available.
System is based on server architecture; user can pre-book their desired slot via App. The server will process using PHP and MYSQL. Number plate recognition technique (OCR) is applied at the entrance to identify booked and un-booked cars. The data base of the server is updated by android application and also through image processing.
If user has parked his vehicle in a wrong slot then he will be alert through an alarm by car monitoring algorithm of image processing
II. SYSTEM BLOCK MODEL
An Android technology along with the Optical Character Recognition (OCR) can play an important role in reducing this problem caused by the inadequate parking.
Figure-2: System Architecture
Figure-2 is a complete block based model of the
proposed system. Parking area contain a system
based on OCR to recognize an incoming car and
check in the database if it is booked or not and if
it is a barrier will be opened controlled by
AT89C51 as shown in Figure-10 and LCD will
guide the user about an available a lot. User needs
to install the “SSUET Parking” application on his
Android based device. After installation, the icon
of the app will appear on the Home Screen of the
user’s device. Application starts with welcome
page followed by two options, either to view map
of parking area or to book a slot for parking as
shown in Figure-3. In Figure-4, we can see the
map of parking area. In Figure-5, available slot
means that the slot is empty, booked slot means
slot is booked using application and reserved slot
means car is parked at the slot. By selecting an
option of map of parking area, user can view the
parking lot map consisting of the graphical view
of slots with their current status, either available
or not.
48 Figure-3:Welcome page of an Android Application
Figure-4: Map of Parking Area
Figure-5: Availability of Slots
Figure-6: Reserved Slot Display Screen
49 User can select an empty slot in multiple parking locations. Client has to select one of the locations provided where he wishes to park the vehicle. To book a desired empty location client need to start the booking process by entering his/her car’s number plate. Number plate has a key role in this project providing security. On successful booking, a confirmation line appears “YOUR SLOT HAS BEEN BOOKED”. If the slot is already reserved it will display the message shown in Figure-6.
Database is made on mySQL which holds the information of all the slots status. Database also holds the information of number plates of all reserved and booked slots. It also holds the information of time of booking of all booked slots and the information of time remaining of booking of all booked slots. Figure-7 represents the image of Server database.
Figure-7:SQL Server Database
III. SYSTEM SOFTWARE MODEL
In our proposed work, we have implemented an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to extract correct number plate from a vehicle. OCR is applied on both the entrance and the exit. At entrance, number plate is matched with booked slots in database to provide user’s pre-booked slot to him/her. At exit, number plate is matched with reserved slots in database to remove entry from database. Car monitoring is also done through image processing and if user has parked his vehicle in a wrong slot then he will be alert through an alarm.
Figure-8:OCR Algorithm
50 LCD is placed in parking area displaying current status of all slots. This is be done by programming LCD using C language. LCD function is to display whether each spot is occupied or not, LCD will also display the number of empty, booked and reserved parking spot by reading 16 files generated by MATLAB.
LCD will decrement and increment the status of slots if a spot becomes empty or occupied.
An automatic barrier control gate is made which will detect cars at entrance and exit, opens automatically if number plate is correctly extracted and if space is available in the parking area. Also it automatically closed when car leaves through the barrier.
IV. RESULTS
This autonomous system can be used for parking system in any shopping mall, at railway stations, near airports, theatres, industries, commercial offices and educational institutes etc. This system has some requirements that system needs Internet connection and also user must have Android device. Also this system allows a user to book only one slot till his time of booking ends. Figure- 9 is a complete schematic model of the system displaying the major hardware connection of a microcontroller which is used to control the barrier of the parking system.
Atmel AT89C51 is used as a base controller for barrier movement, L293D controls the direction of motor movement. For sensing an incoming five vehicle Light Dependent Resisters (LDR) are used, two are at the entrance, two of them are at the exit and one connected between the two LDR at the both entrance as well as exit. Since the signal generated by the LDR is not high enough to be recognized by the controller, so amplifiers are utilized to amplify the signal to the desired level. Finally MAX232 will transmit the information serially to the base station about the entrance or exit f a car in the parking lot and from there base station will update the status as sown in Fig-10. Basically Figure-10 represents the LCD display for the parked or the cars that are
about to enter the parking area. It informs the customer about the slots available and where to park. If the parking area is already occupied it will display unavailable on the display screen.
Figur-9: Schematic Diagram of a complete hardware model designed on Proteus.
Figure-10: LCD Display of the Parking Area
51 V. CONCLUSION
If we are on the road and about to reach our desired destination the first thing comes in our mind is the question that “Will there be parking area available nearby or not?” and in comparison to other countries it is quit discouraging and even demoralizing that there is no well devised plan to cater this problem in Pakistan. Government is considering many options but no simple solution such as this technology. In our daily life we too face such difficulties when we are on the road, so why not introduce a system that can reduce this problem only by using an Android App from anywhere and pre-book a slot, but after the slot is booked it is mandatory to reach the location within time allotted. The whole system perform efficiently without causing any problems. This kind of technology is highly recommended for commercial use to avoid the parking problems.
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