Sensor for vehicle presence

Question

Hello everyone,

I am trying to build a small personal project - we have a limited set of parking spots in the underground parking at work and it all works on a first come, first served basis. I am thinking of installing sensors for each parking place and build an app that can tell me how many available parking spaces there are.

I am trying to find out what would be the best sensor to use. The easiest way is to install the sensor above each parking spot and I was looking at the an ultrasonic ranger that works between 3 cm and 4 m. Do you think this would be the right sensor to use? What other options are there and what kind of sensors are usually being used in these cases?

Thanks,

Cristi Grigore

D_Hersey · Accepted Answer

That seems to be a good way to do it. They are making auto presence sensors to trigger green lights and are having a little bit of a hard time of it. Putting a scale in the motorway was not always triggering for motorcycles. Cameras have to deal with a variety of lighting circumstances. I think an ultrasonic solution would be good enough for your circumstance, and fairly easy to implement.