35. PARKING SPACE VACANCY MONITORING

Department: Computer Science & Engineering
Faculty Advisor(s): Serge Belongie

Primary Student
Name: Catherine L Wah
Email: cwah@ucsd.edu
Phone: 217-377-5120
Grad Year: 2013

Abstract
The availability of parking spaces on campus at UCSD is a significant concern, and searching through crowded lots for available spots is frustrating, time consuming, and wastes gas. It would save time for the driver to be notified when spots are available, rather than have to search for them himself or herself.

In this project, we explore various vision-based methods for detecting vacancies in parking lots. In comparison to sensor-based parking space detection, which requires the installation and maintenance of networks of sensors, vision-based systems are more cost-effective and non-intrusive.

We will monitor the vacancy status of parking spaces for the P502 parking lot on UCSD campus, using photos taken from the roof of CalIT2 with multiple pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras. In monitoring the parking lot, we must differentiate between A and B spaces.

Current methods of vacancy detection do not adequately deal with occlusion, particularly vehicle on vehicle, and this project seeks to address that issue. Other considerations that must be taken into account in the implementation of this vacancy monitoring system include variable lighting conditions, different orientations of the vehicle, and different poses of the vehicle.

This system will ultimately be integrated with a status dissemination tool, where drivers will be able to query the parking lot status via SMS.

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