Parking Sensor

June 2016

I. Motivation

To design a system that prevents a driver from striking a concrete block with the car bumper when pulling into a parking space.

II. Inspiration

Inspiration was drawn from how aircraft are marshalled to their gates after landing, whether by human ground crews or their modern, automated counterpart - Visual Docking Guidance System (VDGS).

III. Requirements

• Clear visual indication of distance between bumper to concrete block

• Distance accuracy within ± 50cm, temporal resolution under 100ms

• Low-power sleep mode - activated only when vehicle approaches parking space, with time-out delay

IV. Materials

• Arduino Genuino Uno

• HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor

• WS2812B RGB individually-addressable LED strip

• Photoresistor, a.k.a. light-dependent resistor (LDR)

• Portable USB charger

• Hookup wire

• Project enclosure (Thai food delivery container)

V. Circuit layout

[Insert image from Fritzing here]

VI. Code

VII. Testing

VIII. Conclusion and next steps

• Future iterations could be free-standing to obviate the mounting of adhesive directly onto the garage wall, thus preventing issues with the building HOA.

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IX. Acknowledgements

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