Capstone Project: A Cloud-based Backend Server for an Automated Bicycle Rental System (6 page paper)

Automated bicycle rental systems have become an increasingly popular form of public transportation in cities and on campuses. As a senior capstone project at York College of Pennsylvania, 19 engineering students across three disciplines; computer engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering; designed and built a working Automated Bicycle Rental System (ABRS) for use by the college community. The ABRS project is designed to support multiple rental kiosks, and a multitude of bicycles, each with an embedded GPS tracking device. Each rental kiosks and GPS tracking device communicates with a common backend server to provide status updates on system health, bicycle availability, as well as rental transaction information. The backend server maintains this information and provides both an end user and administrative user interface for interacting with the system. This paper presents the design and implementation of the cloud-based backend server for the ABRS project.