Figure 1 – Product Development
The team’s design concept implements a QR code sticker that will be placed on the front of the vehicle. Once the vehicle enters or exits the parking garage a camera will take an image of the QR code and allow for the gate to open. Buck-I-Scan would make the parking experience at Ohio State much more efficient. One of the main problems encountered by the users was a “bottleneck” of traffic at the entrance and exit of the garage due to time-consuming ticket/payment process. Having a scanning system relieves some of the traffic backup heading in and out of the garage and save the user time that would be spent obtaining a ticket, finding a pay station, and making their parking payment. The device being scanned will be small and will not distract the driver. The code is suggested to be placed somewhere on the car that would be visible to an external scanner placed at the gate of the garage. The scanner will be connected to an online payment system the will be viewable to the users on a phone app. Additionally, the scanner will be able to read the QR code from a distance of up to 10 ft allowing for the code to be scan while the vehicle is still in motion allow for the drive to efficient enter the parking garage. The vehicle must be traveling at low speeds to ensure user safety and execution of the system. The gate will only allow one vehicle to enter the garage at a time.
The final product was controlled by an Arduino Nano which was coded to simulate the process described above. Using different motor speeds, allowed for the PV to accelerate and approach the gate. Once the sensor was triggered that PV waited until the gate opened. This was programmatically achieved by reversing the motors. Final the motors were reversed back to the forward direct allowing for the PV to pass the gate and park in the parking spot at the end of the track.