2013 Texas Instruments India Educators' Conference
ROBOTIC VALET PARKING SYSTEM
ANUJ K NAYAK, AKASH H C, GEETHA PRAKASH
PES INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY, Bangalore, India
nayakanuj7@gmail.com
Abstract- Due to influx of vehicles on the road, citizens
inevitably combat traffic congestion on a daily basis. This is
underlined by the lack of parking infrastructure and shoot up
of vehicle to human population ratio. The Robotic Valet
Parking System uses the robotic valets, which are the vehicle
carriers and parks the vehicles compactly in a given space of
the parking area once the driver loads his vehicle at the
loading bay. Robotic Valet Automated Parking System (APS)
provides solution for the parking problems without the need
for special construction for automation. The conventional
concrete garages can be transformed into an automated
parking system with the use of robotic valets. Since the robotic
valet APS requires concrete flooring, which provides the fire
separation, builders consider it approvable. The number and
the position of the occupied vehicles can be determined without
the deployment of the sensors in each of the parking slots. The
vacancy of the parking garage is displayed on the LCD screen
which is of benefit to the costumer. The central processing unit
wirelessly controls the locomotion of robotic valets and the
arrangement of vehicles in the parking area. We shall prove
the space efficiency, accuracy, operational speed, safety and
cost effectiveness of the proposed parking system. A functional
prototype of a robotic valet is built which parks the vehicle
loaded. The Unified Technology Learning Platform (UTLP)
Kit, which has TI (Texas Instruments) ARM CORTEX A-8
microprocessor unit embedded in the TI OMAP 3530
applications processor, is the control unit and this monitors the
movement of the robotic valet wirelessly. On producing the
parking slip at the exit the robotic valet automatically retrieves
the vehicle to the costumer.
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Motivation
Influx of millions of vehicles in the present scenario
has resulted in the over brimming of roads. Value of the real
estate is shooting up. Presently numerous self-park garages
exist, whose spaces have to be optimized. Unnecessary
wastage of fuel is observed due to traffic congestion. As a
consequence vehicular exhaust is contributing to the
atmospheric pollution. Automated parking system that has
the ability to absorb the traffic, convenient for the vehicle
owners, approved by the builders, compact and eco-friendly
is today a requirement.
B. Solution
Parking garage is designed to have loading bay which
imbibes traffic flow by speedy operation of the robotic valet.
As the driver switches the engine off, on loading his vehicle,
considerable amount of fuel is saved. The central unit
communicates wirelessly with the robotic valets operating in
the parking area of the garage. The robotic valet carries the
vehicle and stuffs it in parking area with minimal clearance
with the adjacent vehicle. The vacancy of the parking garage
978-0-7695-5146-3/13 $26.00 © 2013 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/TIIEC.2013.62
is updated and displayed on the LCD screen. The driver
produces the parking slip at the exit and the robotic valet
retrieves the vehicle in minutes.
The project uses TI OMAP 3530 applications processor
as the central unit for keypad, sensor and LCD interfacing.
ATMEGA328P microcontroller of the Arduino board
controls the locomotion of the robotic valet.
II. LITERATURE SURVEY
The typical tower crane automated parking system uses
hydraulic robotic arms to pick the vehicles up and place in
the slot desired. There are chances of single point of failure.
The next generation parking system as shown in Fig. 1 is the
rack and rail type automated parking system [2]. They face
lack of fire separation and throughput issues which limit
their adoption [2].In addition, there are problems of
servicing. Entire or a part of the system has to be shut down
in case of operational failure. The circular automated
parking system as shown in Fig. 2 has the central axis for
accessing different levels and slots to park the vehicles
along the circumference [1]. The circular frame results in a
futility of enormous space as shown in Fig. 15 even though
the throughput is quite high. Bottlenecks occur in all the
above mentioned parking systems.
III. ADVANTAGES OF ROBOTIC VALET PARKING
SYSTEM
1. Robotic valet parking system is Greener: Once the driver
loads his vehicle into the loading bay, he turns the engine
off. A lot of valuable fuel would be spared. Since human
access to the parking area is negligible, lighting and
ventilation requirements are minimal.
2. Improved throughput [2]: Since multiple robotic valets
operate across the parking garage for parking, arranging and
retrieving, the throughput is high. The driver or the owner
can retrieve his car in minutes.
3. Robotic valet parking system is convenient and secure:
As this is an automated parking system, the need of human
operator is minimized. There are no problems of theft.
Moreover, there are no chances of dings and dents.
4. Can travel underneath the parked vehicles [2]: This
feature of the robotic valets has resulted in the significant
increase in the parking efficiency, thus facilitating the scope
for the improvement of cityscape. Parking efficiency is
about 70 percent as illustrated in Fig. 17.
5. Ease of service [2]: Suppose a malfunction of any robotic
valet is observed, there will be no hindrance in the parking
operations. Some robotic valets can be stored as backup. On
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replacement of the malfunctioning robotic valets with the 4. If another car arrives at the loading bay, the valet
stored ones, the parking process can be resumed smoothly. moves back to the loading bay, carries the vehicle
6. Design adaptability: There is no requirement for the by the pallet and places it in the second slot.
special construction of garages for implementing the 5. When the driver needs his vehicle back, he is
proposed parking system. Conventional garages can be required to produce the parking slip.
transformed into the robotic valet parking garages by just 6. The robotic valet moves across the parking area to
programming the robotic valets to operate in the parking the slot and retrieves his vehicle to the retrieving
space available. bay in the forward-drive position.
7. No single point of failure [2]: If a portion of the system Suppose the vehicle to be retrieved is surrounded by other
(entire row as shown in Fig. 2) fails, then the portion need vehicles in the parking area, multiple robotic valets operate
not be shut down until it is set right as in the rack and rail in the parking area to clear the way for the vehicle to be
type automated parking systems. Entire system does not fail retrieved.
as in the tower-crane parking system.
IV. OPERATION
1. When the driver arrives at the parking garage, he
places his vehicle on the pallet at the loading bay
as shown in Fig. 4.
2. The sensor at the loading bay gets activated and
then the driver turns the engine off and presses a
button once he steps out of the loading bay. He
then receives a parking slip.
3. The robotic valet moves underneath the pallet,
Fig. 1. Robotic valet operation side view
locks itself with the pallet as shown in Fig. 3,
carries it to the first slot and unlocks.

Fig. 2. Layout of the parking area implemented

Fig.3. Top level block diagram of Robotic Valet APS

V. IMPLEMENTATION
A. HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION
1) Unified Technology Learning Platform Kit: It consists of
Texas Instruments ARM Cortex-A8 microprocessor unit
embedded in Texas Instruments OMAP3530 applications
processor. The interfaces implemented are as follows:
a) Simple Digital Interfacing (SDI) to receive infrared
(IR) sensor inputs.
b) Keypad interfacing for initiating parking operations
and retrieving the vehicles.
Fig. 4. Schematic diagram of the control unit c) UART for the wireless transmission of the data (in
this case a character).
d) LCD interfacing to display the number of vacant
slots for parking.

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2) Arduino Board: contains ATMEGA328P microcontroller. 4) Texas Instruments Quad-Comparator (LM339): This IC
The data received wirelessly is serially input to the is used in the IR sensors which control the direction of
microcontroller at a baud rate of 9600 bps. The speed of the rotation of the DC motors, hence manoeuvre the robotic
DC motors (12V, 200 rpm) is determined by the duty cycle
valet along the paths reaching out to all the slots. The
of the pulse width modulated (PWM) output.
3) Texas Instruments L293D QUADRUPLE HALF-H robotic valet plays the role of an automated guided vehicle.
DRIVER: is used to drive the DC motors corresponding to
the PWM input from the microcontroller of Arduino board.

Fig. 5. Schematic diagram of the circuit mounted on the robotic valet

DC motors. The speed of operation is controlled by pulse

Fig 6. Infrared Sensor circuit
width modulation as shown in Fig. 10. For the forward
movement, duty cycle of 70 percent is used and for the
turning movements, a duty cycle of 50 percent. The vehicle
is placed in the slot determined by the controller. The
occupancy of the parking area is updated. Meanwhile, the
vacancy of the parking area is displayed on the LCD screen.
To retrieve the parked vehicle, the parking slip having the
alternate black and white strips corresponding to the binary
value of the parking slot numbers is scanned by the IR
sensors and finally, the required vehicle is retrieved to the
driver. In the cases of the loss of parking slip, the input from
the keypad can be used to retrieve the vehicle.

Fig. 7. Pulse width modulated waveform

5) Operation from the hardware perspective

When a vehicle enters the loading bay, the IR sensor
enables the keypad input through the keypad interface. On
pressing the ‘*’ button on the keypad, character ‘p’ is
serially transmitted at a baud rate of 9600 bps to the UART Fig. 8. The UTLP board with TI OMAP 3530 processor
port to which Xbee wireless module is plugged in. The
character is wirelessly transmitted to the receiver on the
robotic valet.
The receiver receives the character and inputs it to the
ATMEGA328P controller of Arduino. The operation to be
performed is processed and the data is output to the DC
motors. Initially, the robotic valet locks itself with the pallet.
The IR sensors act as feedback to manoeuvre the
Fig. 9. Robotic Valet prototype
locomotion of the robotic valet (which is modelled as a line
follower) by the clockwise and anticlockwise rotation of the

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 B. SOFTWARE IMPLEMENTATION:

Fig. 11 Conventional self-parking system-floor plan

Fig. 12 Circular Automated Parking system-floor plan

Fig. 10. Flow chart indicating the sequence of parking operations

VI. RESULTS
Fig. 11, 12, 13 depict the floor plan of various parking
systems. The parking area is fragmented into slots, where
each slot is considered to be the maximum area that
suffices for parking a light motor vehicle (i.e. 5.5 x 2.5 Fig. 13.Robotic Valet Parking System-floor plan

=165 sq.m) as shown in Fig. 12. For illustration, a parking

space of 15x6 slots is assumed. The maximum occupancy
per floor possible for the conventional self-park garage of
the given dimensions is 62.2 percent, for the circular APS is
34.1percent and for the Robotic Valet APS is 78.89 percent
as shown in Fig. 18. But this requires lot of rearrangements
for the path clearance to retrieve the desired vehicle trapped
within the other surrounding parked vehicles. The operation
is optimal both in terms of space and power consumption
when the occupancy is about 70 percent as shown in Fig. 14.
There is a trade-off among space-optimization, power and
parking fare.

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Fig. 14. Robotic Valet APS-floor plan-optimum performance
VII. CONCLUSION
The robotic valet parking system has proved to be
beneficial for its application in the existing conventional
self- park garages due to its design adaptability. It is most
suitable where the parking area is more with less height. The
robotic valet parking system can be implemented at the
basement of shopping malls, tech parks, apartments and
other commercial buildings. The parking system is
advantageous in terms of operational speed, accuracy,
safety, reliability, cost-effectiveness, convenience, space-
efficiency and eco-friendliness. Hindrance in the parking
operations is considerably low due to the ease of service.
Robotic valet parking system fails to be effective in
comparison with the rack and rail type parking when the
parking space requirement is low (for example, single row
of space with multiple heights).

VIII. SCOPE FOR FUTURE WORK

The combined robotic valet- rack and rail parking
system can be deployed in the conventional parking garages
in order to account for the space above the parked vehicles.
Fig. 15. Parking space efficiency
The throughput of the parking system can be increased
TABLE I significantly by operating multiple robotic valets in parallel.
COMPARISON OF VARIOUS PARKING SYSTEMS The complexity in programming the operation increases
more than proportionately with the larger parking area. The
Parking Tower Circular Rack- Robotic
System crane APS and-rail Valet APS optimization of space by dynamic operation and complex
Feature system APS re-arrangement of the parked vehicles inside the parking
Throughput Low High High High area (software domain) using suitable algorithms can be
Ease of service Low Low Low High considered.
IX. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Parking space Low Low High High This work was supported by Wipro Technologies,
efficiency
Design Low Low Low High
Bangalore. The authors are grateful to Texas Instruments for
adaptability providing a platform to present the work in Texas
Single point of Yes Yes Yes No Instruments India Educators’ Conference.
failure

X. REFERENCES
[1] Anthony P. Chrest, “Parking Structures: Planning, Design, Construction,
Maintenance, and Repair” APPENDIX
[2] http://www.boomerangsystems.com Bill of materials:
[3] “Automotion Parking Systems,” http://www.automotionparking.com
[4] “Round PALIS Automated Car Park,” http://www.palis.de/automatic-
parking-products/round-palis Sl.No Name of the component Quantity Cost INR
[5] “Park it Here,” http://parkithere.wordpress.com/tag/parking-garage 1 IC L293D 2 100
[6] Texas Instruments,”SN74LVCH16T245 16-bit dual-supply bus 2 12V Battery charger 1 200
transceiver with configurable voltage translation and 3-state outputs,” 3 12V Battery 1 375
www.ti.com, July 2005 4 Arduino board + USB cable 1 1335
[7] Texas Instruments, “OMAP3530/25 Applications Processor,” 5 Infrared sensors 4 378
www.ti.com, July 2005 6 12V, 200rpm DC motors 3 600
[8] Texas Instruments, “L293D QUADRUPLE HALF-H DRIVER,” 7 XBee modules 2 2500
www.ti.com, September 1986 8 Robotic components (Wheels, As 234
[9] Texas Instruments, “LM139/LM239/LM339/LM2901/LM3302 Low chassis, clamps, worm required
Power Low Offset Voltage Quad Comparators,” www.ti.com, May 2004 wheel,screws etc)
[10] Texas Instruments, “TPS65930/TPS65920 Integrated Power 9 Bread board, wires, As 115
Management,” www.ti.com, May 2008 required
[11] Digi-International,”XBee/XBee Pro RF Modules,” http://ftp1.digi.com, Total 5837
Feb 2013

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