A Self-powered and Wireless Parking Sensor with Lux-RSS Correlation for Extra Accuracy

The smart parking sensor systems industry continues to grow progressively, and interest in the technology from cities is higher than ever. This paper is proposing a novel, sustainable, and high accuracy parking sensor system. The novelty consists in using a combination of photovoltaic cells and the Received Signal Strength Indicator (RSSI) measurement. While power management technique has been implemented to optimize energy consumption, high occupancy monitoring accuracy is achieved using two-fold sensing approach. It is a sequence of darkness and RSSI measurement-based techniques. The system has been designed, and experiments were conducted. The sensor has proofed 10 days of autonomy in operation; thanks to power optimization technique for the self-powered sensor node. Furthermore, the sensor node enjoys a wide operating range of (RSSI, Distance). Field tests showed a minimum drop of 20 dBm in RSSI caused by a parked vehicle and achieved up to 50 meters distance from sensor node to wireless gateway. The experimental results show that the proposed sensor system has a great potential for parking occupancy monitoring industries.