Automated Parking System

Eduard SEBESTYEN

Tabita FATU

Automation and Computers Systems Engineering

Politehnica University
Timisoara, Romania

Automation and Computers Systems Engineering

Politehnica University
Timisoara, Romania

AbstractThe purpose of this paper is to present the concept of

a secure, fully automated and intelligent parking system, based
on prediction and probability algorithms. The used algorithms
help finding the most suitable place for each customer, using
Markov probabilities, and also provides the customer the
possibility to get the current state of the system, by receiving a
feedback with the probable number of free places for a period of
maximum 20 minutes from the current time.

a customer doesnt have to wait until another customer is fully

served. This way, customer can prepare his car for being
parked by the system, it the same time as another customer is
being served.

Index Termsautomated, system, parking, Markov.

I. INTRODUCTION
All over the world, parking systems are costly and limited.
There is a great need of innovating parking systems that will
acquire all demands with maximum of advantages and
minimum of disadvantages. The presented parking system is
efficient both regarding the time efficiency by getting the car
from the customer and finding a suitable parking slot, and
regarding the space problem. The parking system can be
underground, placed under large buildings, malls, block of
flats, companies and others, or it can be a multi-leveled
building, or a combination of those two.
In the followings, the concept of Automated Parking
System will be presented, with all the advantages it can bring.
The automation part has both the role to get the car from the
customer and place it in the right slot, and also to return it as
safe and quick as possible. For doing this, databases where
used to save and get data, and also algorithms as Markov for
offering the best solutions.
Also, an important feature of this system is to provide the
customer with the possibility to get a prediction regarding the
number of free slots at a given moment of time, using an
Internet web server.
II. MECHANICAL PART
The automated parking system consists of a mechanical
structure, formed of several circular floors, with a number of
parking places on each floor. In the center of the structure,
there is a platform used for getting the car from the customer,
getting it to the parking slot and also returning it when asked.
The first floor has several ins and outs, and its used for
getting and returning the cars.
Each floor its used as a buffer that will contain several
cars, excepting the first floor that is used as an in/out buffer for

III. ELECTRONIC PART

The system has a main motor for the vertical movement,
and another motor is installed on the platform for the horizontal
movement. Also, the platform has a distance sensor, used for
seeing when the car is completely on the platform and when
its fully parked. The entrances of the parking system consist of
a barrier that has a touch screen. The customer will interact
with the system via the HMI (touch screen) and will insert the
users type and if he wants to park or leave. The system will
respond with a unique code in case of parking and will send
him to the gate where the car will be prepared for parking, and
in case of leaving, he will have to insert the unique code
(received at parking) and will be sent to the gate where his car
will be brought.
IV. SOFTWARE PART
The system has four main programming parts:
- the control and tracking of the movements
- the search algorithm for finding the optimal place
- HMI for the interaction with the user
- web page for online interrogation of the systems state

A. The control and tracking of the movements

For a safe handling of the cars, the motors must be
precisely controlled and tracked so that each time the position
of the platform is known, and also the state of the car (parked,
in parking, on the platform).
B. The search algorithm for finding the optimal place
In order to save time and energy, a search algorithm must
be provided for avoiding unnecessary movements that
consumes energy and time.
There are two types of users that will be presented in the
HMI subchapter, so lets suppose the users with a subscription
will stay longer parked and will come more often, while the
occasional users will come rarely and there is a high possibility
that they will stay less in the parking.
In these conditions, the users that have a subscription will
be parked in the most distant place from the main gates while
the occasional users will be placed closer to the main gates.
Due to the fact that the system is circular, the direction of
the rotation of the platform must be considered. Because of the
tracking algorithm the exact position of the platform is known,
and by calculating the steps that have to be made in the left
direction and in the right direction, the direction with the less
number of steps will be selected.
C. HMI interaction with the user
In order to implement the interface with the user, a HMI is
created using a touch screen this is cost saving regarding the
electronic components, because the in and out device is the
same, the electronic interactions are reduced and this also
reduces the interferences, and the programming is reduced by
controlling a single device and avoiding there synchronization.
1) The main menu contains two buttons that give the
customer the possibility to either park or get his car.

Fig. C.2) Park car menu

3) In case of selecting the Subscriber option, the customer
will have to insert his subscriber code. For this, a numeric
keypad will be provided.

Fig. C.3) Keypad

4) In case of selecting the Usual Client option, the
customer will be given an unique code, that will be also used in
order to get the car.

Fig. C.4) User info

Fig. C.1) Main menu

2) In case of selecting the Park car option, a new menu is
provided. The user will have to select an option, depending on
his type (subscriber or occasional client). Another option is
possible, that would give the occasional user the chance to
become a subscriber.

5) In case of selecting the Subscribe Client option, the

user will receive a code that will be valid for the whole
subscribing period. This view is almost the same as the C.4
figure.
6) Leave car option provides the customer with the
possibility to get the car back. In order to identify his car, the
user will have to insert his code (see fig. C.3). After this, he
will get a message that the car is being prepared (almost as fig.
C.4).

D. Web page for online interrogation of the systems state

Another possibility for the user to interact with the system
would be a server that contains all the information regarding
the system, and makes it available for the users to see. This will
be done by using a web page. The role of this web page is to
provide information about the current state of the parking
system, and also a main purpose of this page is to get a
prediction regarding a future state.

V. MARKOV PROCESS
As considered in [6] and [13], the Markov process will be
presented.
The Markov chain (or Markov process) is a stochastic
process which has the property that the future states are
dependent of the former states. This property is called Markov
property. In other words, the current state of a process contains
all the information regarding the entire evolution of the
process.
A special case of the Markov process is the Birth-Death
process [7], [12]. This special case is used in the presented
application.

Fig. V) Birth-Death process

Fig. D.1) Home page

An example of the functioning of the web interrogation
would be provided bellow. For the first time we will interrogate
the prediction for the next 5 minutes, and then for the next 14
minutes. The bigger the number of minutes is, the most
accurate the prediction will be.

According to the Birth-Death process, when a birth event

occurs, the process gets from the state n in the state n+1. When
a death event occurs, the process gets from the state n in the
state n-1.
The formula used to calculate the prediction was taken by
studying some scientific papers such as [1], [19] and [20].

This formula represents the probability that the number of

parked cars to be j at a certain time t.

Fig. D.2) Prediction for 5 minutes

Fig. D.3) Prediction for 14 minutes

The user can change the date, because the tracking is done
for a longer time (a week), so initially supposing that the
current week day evolves as the prior week and after a while,
the average of the systems state will be considered.

VI. STRUCTURE OF THE DATABASES

Databases are needed in order to:
1) In/out gates: this database has the role to constantly
memorize the parking slots and the in/out gates. This means
that this database will the mirror of the parking systems state
at a certain moment
2) Coming/going flow: this database has the task to daily
memorize the coming/going flow of the cars. It is used to get
the statistics of the daily flow per week.
3) Customers: this database contains the subscriber
customers. It memorizes the habits of the subscribers, to get a
pattern for each subscriber
4) Personal codes: this database stores all the personal codes
given to the customers in order to park/get the car
VII.

FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS

A. Mechanical structure
From the mechanical point of view it would be more
efficient if the structure would be cubical, as a 3D matrix, that

means that the system will be divided in rows and columns,

and each parking slot will represent a cell from the matrix.
This will lead to the possibility to create more independent
platforms that communicate to each other, in order to avoid
collision. Due to the fact that there are more platforms, more
customers can be served in the same time, reducing the waiting
queue and time.
B. Electronic part
In order to reduce the waiting queue, each entrance can be
provided with a HMI. By doing this, each customer can in the
same time access the systems services. Probably, a special
equipment master should be created in order to coordinate
the platforms, so that each of them will know each in/out to
serve.
Another improvement could be providing the system with a
GSM module, that would allow the customer to send a SMS to
the system, so that that system will prepare the car as the
customer arrives. A cheaper alternative for this improvement
and easier to manage regarding the timing would be providing
the system with a wireless module that would allow accessing
the system for getting the car if the customer is less than 100
meters away.
C. Software part
Regarding the electronic improvements, a communication
between the master and each platform should be realized, so

that the master will know the position of each of the

platforms at a certain moment, so that it can coordinate them.
Also, a communication between the platforms should be
realized by transmitting the trajectory computed by each
platform, so that the probable collision can be known and
avoided.
The master, knowing all the platforms positions, should
compute the shortest route of each platform for every request,
so that it can choose to platform with the shortest route.
CONCLUSIONS

Nowadays, parking is a major problem regarding space and

necessary time for finding a parking slot. By creating
automated parking systems, there can be provided the
possibility to save the time used in looking for parking slots
and offer parking places in the near of their destination. As
already mentioned, this type of parking systems can be
provided as an underground parking under malls, large
buildings or companies, or even a stand-alone building.
Another advantage for this type of parking system is the
offered security, so that the customer wont be worried that his
car can be broken or stolen or scratched in the parking process.
REFERENCES
[1]