iPark – Vision-Based Parking Monitoring System

Team: J. Konrad, W.C. Karl, M. Mole, P. Ward, I. Hochman, K. Lopez
Funding: Capstone Senior Design Project
Status: Completed (2004-2005)

Background: With the difficulty of finding an empty parking spot at airports (have you tried Boston’s  Logan International Airport recently?) and shopping malls a clear need arises for a system permitting automatic localization of available parking and alerting users.

Summary: In this senior design project, a team of four BU students under the supervision of Profs. Konrad and Karl built a complete system for monitoring a parking area, detecting empty parking spots and alerting users to such spots via a graphical user interface (large screen, PDA, cell phone, etc.). The system is vision-based and uses commercial IEEE 802.11 wireless cameras and standard PCs. The team won the 2005  IEEE Student Design Contest in Rochester, NY and was also featured on WHDH Channel 7 News and several web sites.


WHDH Channel 7 News report on parking occupancy monitoring system