CA2354643A1

CA2354643A1 - Intellectual urban parking navigation system

Info

Publication number: CA2354643A1
Application number: CA 2354643
Authority: CA
Inventors: Simon Lai; Richard Lai
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2001-07-20
Filing date: 2001-07-20
Publication date: 2003-01-20

Abstract

This invention provides a unique and intellectual parking spot navigating system for urban parking area such as airport, underground parking in urban areas. The system can be used to inform drivers the parking slots status in side the parking area and expedite their parking spots seeking process. The system includes object detection sensors (which are installed at each parking slot in parking area), displaying panels (which collect the information from the sensors and dynamically show the occupancy status of parking slots) and networks (which are wires and cables to connect sensors to the displaying panels). The sensors at each parking spot will detect the occupancy status of a parking slot by detecting the distance of a car inside the slot. The networks that wire the sensors together transfer the sensor signals into displaying panels installed at each level of parking entrances or major intersections. The displaying panel will then dynamically display the occupancy status of all the parking slots in each area.

Description

Description of Intellectual Urban Parking Navigation System Technical Field This invention pertains to urban parking areas where there are lots of parking slots in the parking space and the usage of parking area is frequent and busy.
Background of the invention People usually spend a long time looking for parking spots when they get into an urban parking space, such as airport, shopping mall underground parking because they don't know where a vacant parking slot will be. The only way is by driving around and hoping to bump into one by luck. This is a time consuming process and usually causing traffic chaos when lots of cars are doing the same parking spot hunting. To alleviate this bad situation, we can provide the drivers real time parking status information of all the parking slots in the whole parking area or at each level of the parking area.
With this information, drivers can be navigated quickly to the vacant slots and therefore avoid their seeking time and reduces the chances for traffic blocking.
Details To collect the information of each parking slot in the parking area, we need to install a sensor that are able to detect whether there is a car currently parking at each parking spot.
We also need to assemble the individual parking spot information and present it at the entrance or intersection of the parking area so drivers can easily figure out where the vacant slots are so they can directly drive to there. Currently, no parking space have the mechanism implemented and the idea of this invention is brand new.
Fig 1. Describes how this invention works in a parking place and the components in this invention.
The invention consists of three components: sensors, display panel and network that connect sensors to display panel.
As show in Fig 1, each parking slot has a sensor installed. The sensor can detect whether there is a car inside the parking slot by detecting the distance change of the car. Therefore the vacancy status of each parking slot can be detected at real time by the sensor installed in it.
The signals of all the sensors are connected together by the network, which essentially are wires connecting the sensors together.
All the signals from the sensors are passed through network to display panels, which can be installed at either the entrance of the whole parking area or intersection of each parking level. By looking at the display panel, drivers can detect which parking slots are vacant and choose the closest route to drive to the parking spot.
This invention can be used in urban parking places such as airport, shopping mall underground parking. By implementing this invention, we can easily locate the vacant parking spots by glancing at the display panels at entrance or each level, and drive directly to the parking slots we want. An extension of this invention would be the real time parking space information can be transmitted to the GPS system inside the car wirelessly, therefore driver can use the GPS system inside their car to navigate them to the vacant parking spots.

Claims

1. The Intellectual Urban Parking Navigation System comprises three major parts:
.cndot. Sensors installed at each parking slot .cndot. Display panels that collect the information from each sensors .cndot. Circuits and wires that connect the sensors to display panels.

2. The sensors defined in claim 1, which are installed at each parking slot to detect the occupancy status information, can be infrared sensors or other type of sensors that can effectively detect the existence of an object in the small area of parking slot.

3. The display panels defined in claim 1, which are used to display the parking slots status in the whole or part of the parking area, can be a displaying map of the parking slots status in whole parking area or one floor of parking area.

4. The display panels defined in claim 1can be installed at the entrance of the parking area and each floor or the entering point and turning points along the drive way toward those area.

5. The circuits and wires in claim 1, which relays the signal from each sensor to display panel, can be physical wires or wireless as long as the can transmit the occupancy status information from each sensor and assemble the overall information to the display panel.