Autonomous Parallel Car Parking

Abstract

As the number of drivers is directly correlated to the population growth, the problems of parallel parking will eventually rise as the number of drivers on the road increases. Hence, possible accidents might occur at parking spots that could lead to road traffic or blockage, especially in certain occasions. For example, in national festivals, people tend to drive to shopping malls and other gathering places. Since it is time consuming for a driver to find a suitable parking spot due to highly-condensed parking spaces that sometimes causes frustration to drivers, it is more efficient and easier to use parallel parking system and allow the car for self-parking. Also, autonomous parallel parking system decreases traffic casualties and optimizes fuel consumption of cars. The scope of this paper is to present our work in a project which implements autonomous parallel car parking, where a car finds an empty suitable parking slot and then parallel-park itself into it. Then, we write the algorithm that achieves the parallel parking system needed. After that, we implement and run the code onto the car circuit. However, implementing this system needs modification in a radio-controlled car by adding to it some hardware components such as a microcontroller, DC motor, servo motor and multiple of infra-red and ultra-sonic sensors. Besides that, we add some safety features to this prototype, such as open door and alcohol detection. Finally, we evaluate the performance of our system, where results show that the car is capable of parking itself after performing all the steps specified by the algorithm.