Development of Smart Car Parking with Modular System

Abstract

With the number of cars exceedingly outgrowing the capacity of the roads in Thailand especially in cities, traffic jams and parking space have become major problems. These problems are changing people’s preference from driving personal car to workplace to driving to parking lots and taking public transport instead. The practice, also popularly known as “park and ride” though, still require big parking land areas to accommodate the ever increasing number of cars. This research was thus conducted to design and develop a smart parking lot module that can accommodate as many cars as possible and be easily installed and operated in a suitable area. The parking lot module design was based on the slide (horizontal) and lift (vertical) movement principle. Its main components include: a car loading tray, a tray driving mechanism and a steel structural frame. Development of the components was based on the stress analyses using finite element analysis method and machine design theory. A smart car parking module prototype consisting of 2 two-unit modules attached horizontally to 1 three-unit module was then fabricated for flexibility in assembling and fitting any space contour. The module consisting of 2 floors with a full capacity of 13 cars was constructed in a 6,100 mm x 18,458 mm (W x L) space, using locally available materials and simple mechanism for ease in repair and maintenance. Results of the module components’ stress analyses using finite elements analyses and the actual stress measurement of the prototype using a strain gauge were quite comparable with only 7.895% tolerance value. The results thus suggest that the designed module is safe and strong enough to support.