Tired of driving around town looking for parking? Researchers from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), the WorldSensing company and the Telecommunications Technology Center of Catalonia (CTTC) have developed un system called XALOC that locates free parking spaces on the streetSo whatguides the user to the next.
The platform is based on a wireless sensor network capable of detecting outdoor parking spaces and vehicle location tasks with aalternative system to GPS, more accurate than this in urban areas. With this platform it is possible to locate and guide drivers to available parking spaces within the area of interest.
The network sensors are located on the pavement of the street, right in the center of the blue and green areas, and detect whether or not the square is occupied, transmitting the information via the Internet to a central server. This server processes them and sends them to indicative panels located on the street that show theinformation on the occupation status of the area in real time.
At the same time, the sensor platformlocate users looking for parking, so that a personalized service can be offered through a portable browser for the user, calledARID Navigator, which takes advantage of the signs to position itself in the urban environment. Once the vehicle is located, the browser communicates with the central XALOC server to find out the number of free parking spaces in the area and their location, and displays all this information to the user. In this way, traffic management in urban environments could be improved,slowing down what experts call “shaking traffic”, that is, the movement of vehicles that circulate without a specific direction looking for a place to park.
