Toward an easy deployable outdoor parking system — Lessons from long-term deployment

Data pertaining to the availability of parking slots is crucial to the efficient operation of systems designed to monitor the state of parking spaces. Outdoor parking systems have been developed using wireless sensors, Internet of Things (IoT) technology, and cameras. Unfortunately, interference from electromagnetic fields complicates the tuning of parameters for detection algorithms and limits accuracy to only 90 percent. In this study, we investigated these problems by collecting data from magnetic sensors, light sensors, and LoRa wireless modules used in the detection transient events (car arrivals and departures) over a period of 13 months. This led to the design an adaptive occupancy detection system using a variety of sensors, which can be deployed with only minimal calibration.